


Joker's Wild

by DragonWrites



Series: Emissary Davenport [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Balance Arc spoilers, Canon-Typical Violence, Fantasy Racism, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Memory Loss, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rated T for swearing, Temporary Character Death, divine shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-06-21 11:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15557187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonWrites/pseuds/DragonWrites
Summary: Istus.  Pan.  The Raven Queen.  Each of them have their chosen ones among the Seven Birds.But unbeknownst to the crew, Davenport was also chosen to serve a god:  one whose patronage he doesn't understand, one whose designs he will spend a lifetime grappling with.This is the story of Captain Davenport, unwilling emissary of the God of Pranks.





	1. Warren

The first time Davenport meets his god, he is thirteen years old and skeptical.

The air in his bedroom shimmers like sunlight catching on jewels, and Garl Glittergold appears with a big grin on his face.

"Dwimly Drew True-Blue Cloch Davenport," he says.  "I am Garl Glittergold, Lord of Pranks, First of the Golden Hills and Watchful Protector of Gnomekind.  And I have chosen you to be my emissary to the world."

Davenport looks up from the model engine he's been tinkering with on his desk.  Very slowly, he lifts the goggles from his eyes.  "What?"

Garl's grin doesn't waver.  "You're to be my emissary," he repeats.  "My champion.  My chosen."

Davenport frowns.  Images flash through his head of gnomes who've dedicated their lives to Garl Glittergold the Joker.  Pranksters and rogues travelling around making fools of themselves.  Clerics holding epic prank wars among their ranks.

In short, they're everything that Davenport is pretty sure he doesn't want to be.  He can't tell a joke to save his life, for one thing, and pranks are just a waste of time.

"Um," he says.  "Have you _met_ me?"

But Garl just keeps grinning.  "I know, right?  Nobody would ever expect it!"

Davenport gets to his feet.  "All right, Bunder," he says, "joke's over.  Drop the illusion."  Where's that jerk cousin of his hiding?  He checks his wardrobe, peers under the bed.

Garl's grin finally fades.  He clears his throat.  "I'm definitely not the work of Bunder," he says.

"Sure," says Davenport.  "Gwight, then?  Who's decided to make fun of me today?"  He rolls his eyes.  "Take your pick, it's all the same."

"While I'm flattered that you think that I, Lord of Pranks, am a prank myself, I assure you I'm quite real."

"Yup, you sure are."  Davenport scoops up a pillow and throws it straight at him.

It bounces off his head with a shower of golden sparks.

Davenport's eyes widen.  He stands up straight.  "Oh gods," he says in a strangled voice, "you're really there!"

Garl's smile returns.  He twirls one curling end of his magnificent coppery mustache.  "Like I said." 

Davenport sits down hard on the bed.  "Oh gods, I just threw a pillow at Garl Glittergold," he said.  "I just threw a…"  He trails off, burying his face in his hands.  He can feel his cheeks burn with embarrassment.

Garl sits down beside him on the bed.  "Now now, it's all right," he says.  "A thrown pillow never hurt anyone.  Now, hold out your hand.  I have something for you."

Davenport looks up at him, blinking.  "This…really isn't a joke?" he squeaks. 

Garl waits.  Davenport swallows, and holds out his hand.  Part of him hopes that nothing will land in his open palm, part of him hopes that this is still some clever trick of illusion, or maybe a weird dream he's about to wake up from.

But something heavy and cool lands in his hand, and a jolt like lightning runs from his scalp to the tip of his tail.

He looks at his hand.  He's holding a golden die with twenty faces.  The 20 is currently face-up. 

"Um," he says.  "Thanks…?"

Garl smiles, and taps him right in the middle of his forehead.  Lightning runs through him again, and visions flash through his brain in quick succession.  The die rolling across the floor; his name burning in bright letters across the pages of a huge book; a banquet hall full of feasting gnomes and Garl Glittergold standing up from the chair beside him, lifting an intricately-crafted goblet and raising a toast to him, Dwimly Drew True-Blue Cloch Davenport the Unexpected, Joker's Emissary, while the other gnomes cheer. 

"I like you already, kid," says the double-headed war axe strapped to Garl's back.

And then he's back in his bedroom, alone, flopped on his bed and staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.  The die grows warm in his hand.

 

#

 

The next day, he wakes up and the die is still there, sitting on his desk.  He decides to conduct experiments.  He gets out a notebook and lists the numbers one through twenty down the side of one page. 

The die feels comfortable in his hand, solid and weighty but not awkwardly heavy.  He lets it roll across the floorboards of his bedroom.  It lands on a 16.

A strange tingling sensation fills his hands and makes his fingers twitch.  It feels like the same sort of magical energy when he casts a Minor Illusion cantrip (only ever in school, only when he has to, because his illusions always come out awful, like one of his little siblings' crude crayon drawings).  Only now it feels much more…potent.

He lets the magic spool out, shaping it to an image in his head.  His bedroom transforms into a stunningly realistic cloudscape.  Bed and dresser become towering cumulus touched soft pink with the light of a setting sun.  The air feels chilly against his cheeks and clean in his lungs.  The clouds drift and shift around him.  The sky seems to go on forever.  He gasps at how real it all looks.

He looks down, and his stomach drops at the sight of how far away the ground is.  He stumbles back, losing his balance and almost losing his lunch. 

He forms the illusion of a sturdy glass platform beneath him.  He knows he's not falling, but his brain is reassured nonetheless.  He crouches down and looks through the glass.  Forests and oceans drift past, visible in the gaps between the clouds.  He shapes a flock of white geese flying far below him in a V-formation.

He tries to cast it again, shaping a different landscape altogether.  But the spell doesn't work a second time.  He can manipulate the already-existing cloudscape but that's all.

"O-okay," he says, reaching for his notebook. 

  1. _One (1) use of Hallucinatory Terrain_



He rolls the die again, but nothing happens.  He adds a note to the bottom of the page. 

_*Once Per Day_

The next morning, he rolls it again.  It comes up at 5.

A weird and slightly unpleasant tickle forms at the back of his throat.  He crinkles his nose at the sudden overwhelming sensation of an oncoming sneeze.  He can't quite reach his handkerchief in time, and sneezes into his hand.

A pair of white doves burst from his mouth.  They flutter up to the ceiling of his bedroom and unroll a small cloth banner between them.  The words "Congratulations!  You Did It!" are written in fancy blue script.

He winces.  "Gross." 

  1. _Message Dove Sneezes??? (Random message?  Possibly sarcastic.)_



Well, it is the Joker he's dealing with.  He sighs and puts his quill away.  The doves flutter there for a good few minutes before dissipating.

The next day he rolls a 12.  He feels the world slow down around him.  The clock on the wall ticks so much more slowly now.  Either time's being messed with, or he's at the receiving end of a Haste spell.  He decides it's the latter, and uses the extra time to work more on his model engine. 

  1. _One (1) use of Haste (Target: self)_



The next day he rolls a 3.  There's a popping noise and a tingling sensation on his scalp.  He reaches for his head, and is shocked to find poofy, neon-green curls where his normal ginger waves are supposed to be.  He staggers to his feet, staring in horror at his reflection on the dresser mirror.  He looks like a green puffball.  He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. 

There's a knock at his door.  "Davenport, are you ready?" comes his mother's voice.  "We're leaving in five."

"W-what?" he gasps.

"Temple communion," she says.  "It's the thirteenth."

His cheeks burn.  He checks his wall calendar, and there it is…the thirteenth of the month.  Garl's day. 

"Uh, y-yeah, I'll be right out."  He winces, leaning over his dresser.  He tries casting a Minor Illusion cantrip over his head.  But what comes out is a crude angular shape, like a wig carved badly from wood and then painted bright orange.  And it doesn't cover the green pouf completely, so sprigs of curly green poke out of it like corkscrew grass.  He dismisses the illusion, and instead digs a knit cap out of one of his drawers.  He tugs it down over his hair.  It's the middle of summer but an afternoon of uncomfortable sweating is at least better than public humiliation.

He checks himself one more time to make sure the cap covers his hair completely, then he slips out of his room.

The family is gathering in the main den, his mother and father and all his siblings and a handful of aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents.  His mother raises an eyebrow when he arrives, shoulders hunched and hands stuck deep in his pockets.

"Davenport, you'll be too warm in that," she says.

"I'm f-fine," he says, grimacing.  His stutter always gets worse when he's nervous.

(He didn’t stutter once when he was talking to Garl.  Later, he will wonder about that.)

She gives him a long look.  "Okay, if you say so."

He realizes, just as they're heading down the tunnel to the central temple of Garl Glittergold, that he's still clutching the golden die in his pocket.

 

#

 

The monthly services to Garl are one part prayer circle, one part dance party, and one part Open Mic Night.  And none of those things make Davenport particularly comfortable.  Even the quiet periods of prayer leave him restless, uncertain what to do.  Even now.  _Especially_ now.

He huddles down in the pew, trying to make himself invisible. 

"So, um," he mumbles.  "Am I supposed to…do anything specific?  Do I have you on a…a direct line now?"

"Or you can just talk like a normal person," says a voice at his side.  He nearly jumps at the sight of Garl Glittergold sitting beside him in the pew, dressed in the robes of one of the Jewels, his priestly order.  He winks at Davenport.  "I see you've been trying out my little present."

Dav's cheeks flush.  He pulls the knit cap tighter down his head.  "I don't get it," he says.  "What am I supposed to do?  Do I have to become a Jewel?  Go around evangelizing?  I don't…I don't know what it _means._ "

Garl shrugs.  "What do you want it to mean?"

He sinks further down into the pew.  "That's not very helpful," he grumbles.

"Dav," says his mother, "who are you talking to?"

He jumps.  The spot beside him is empty.  "Um…just p-praying to Garl."

She gives him a small smile. 

"Hey Cloch," says his little brother Clocthi.  It's their nicknames for each other, the gnomish words for Big Pebble and Little Pebble.  "Are you gonna tell the cow joke today?"

"Later," he says quickly.  He's told one joke in his life that made anyone laugh, and it was a dumb joke that his kid brother found hilarious.  Now he keeps insisting that Davenport go up during the Open Mic portion and tell the joke to the congregation.  And Davenport, who stutters when he's nervous and who hates public speaking, keeps pushing off his promise. 

Clocthi frowns, disappointed as usual, but he doesn't push.

The service crawls along for hours.  There's a troupe of jugglers, a call-and-response riddle song that goes on _forever_ , a stand-up routine, and a long homily from their head priest, Star Ruby Jella, about the joys of family and community.  Davenport tries to pay attention, tries to let himself be carried along by the sounds of his enormous extended family all sharing this happy communion.  But he just feels as awkward and detached as he always has.  Like he's peering through a window at a party he doesn't know how to enter.  Only now, he carries the added weight of the golden die in his pocket.

It's a relief when the service ends.  He slides up out of the pew and joins the river of gnomes streaming down the aisles. 

The knit cap is yanked from his head by a Mage Hand.  Bunder laughs behind him as his green hair poofs out.  "Whoa!" he chortles.  "Lookit that!"

"Wow," says his cousin Glinta, giving him a lopsided smile.  "That's a brave look, True-Blue.  Should I start calling you True-Green?"

"Bunder!" he shouts, flailing for the cap dangling over his head.  "Give it BACK!"  He hears laughter from all sides.  All of it sounds like it's directed at him.

"Boys, that's _enough_!" roars one of his uncles.  The Mage Hand vanishes and Davenport, who'd squeezed his eyes shut to try to hold back a flood of hot embarrassed tears, feels the cap thrust into his hands.  He wipes his eyes, shoves the cap over his head and runs, half-blind, for the exit.

He doesn’t stop moving till he gets back to his family’s den, to the quiet sanctuary of his room.  He’s gasping hard and his legs are shaking.  He wraps the die in a handkerchief and stuffs it in a small leather bag.  And he buries that bag in the back of his bottom drawer, never to be touched again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so I'm back with yet another Davenport fic! Big surprise there, huh? Anyway, this came about because I had a weird idea and the TFW Discord folks were entirely too encouraging ;) So buckle up and enjoy this tale about Davenport being the chosen emissary of the last god he'd ever expect.
> 
> Also, I'm being a little overconfident and actually posting chapter 1 before I've completed chapter 2, which is...mostly written >.> Updates will come when they come!


	2. Racetrack

On the racetrack, he goes by True-Blue.  He’s hanging with Big Folk now, and they get weird about names, so he picks that one because it sounds cool.  He is sixteen years old, and he’d have a record if the local militia were ever fast enough to catch him.  Which they aren’t.

He keeps to himself in the shady garage where he works on his dragon’s engine.  It’s what they call their drag-racing autowagons, and he digs the name.  It sounds badass.  Nobody fucks with dragonriders. 

Except other dragonriders, of course. 

The garage he uses is neutral territory, a place for all the riders who aren’t affiliated with a gang.  In theory, you don’t mess with another’s dragon, and the riders keep it mostly civil among themselves.  Honor among thieves and all that.  But he’s small, and the other riders make a sport of trying to get under his skin before he nearly pins them to the walls with a few well-thrown knives.

They stop fucking with him after that.

 

#

 

Garl the Joker, however, keeps fucking with him.  He doesn’t know what the god’s game is, but he seems to have decided that “emissary” means “target of all my stupid pranks.”  The tool or part he needs is always conveniently missing.  His machines are plagued by bizarre problems that none of the other dragonriders have ever seen before.  He keeps having to jury-rig solutions to work around the fact that he'd lend his barely-used 3/7-inch wrench to his cousin Belinda, and the one bolt in his entire rig that requires a 3/7-inch wrench goes wonky and needs to be replaced.  For some reason, a standard mid-grade arcane core does nothing for his engine and nobody knows why, but if he beefs up the core's power output by running it through a runed-up titanium amplifier ring, suddenly it works just fine.  Of course, he needs to strengthen the pistons to be able to accommodate that level of force, which makes them heavier, which means he has to lighten the back plating on the dragon to offset the added weight.

"Man, TeeBee," says Key, the half-drow who is True-Blue's only real friend in the garage, "you have the weirdest luck."

True-Blue grits his teeth.  "It's not luck!" he snaps.  "It's Garl being a dick!"

Key raises one pale eyebrow.  "Who's Garl?  TeeBee, is someone fucking with you?"  They look honestly concerned.  "Because if someone's been giving you a hard time, just point 'em out."  They slam one leather-gloved fist into their open palm.  Key is always down for a good fight.  They have some rogue training and they'd taught True-Blue the fine art of knife-throwing.  True-Blue doesn't like fighting, but he knows how to defend himself, thanks to Key.

He pinches the bridge of his nose.  "No, it's not--it's just weird, okay?  It's not a problem you can punch."

Key narrows their eyes.  "Is this a…gnome thing?"

True-Blue slides back under the dragon with an incoherent snarl.  "Just hand me the rubber mallet, okay?"

Key doesn't press the issue.  It's one of the things True-Blue likes about them. 

 

#

 

He stays late one night, fixing yet another bizarre problem, and by the time he gets the engine humming again, it's later than he realizes.  His parents are gonna freak.  They think he's out at a tutoring session, learning how to speak Elvish.  (Key's been teaching him a few short phrases, to help with the ruse.)  He shucks on his leather jacket and scurries out of the garage and down to the ferry, since going down the canal is the fastest way to the other side of town.  Just outside of the town gates are the forested foothills that his family calls home.

The ferry is closed for the night.  He swears under his breath.  Looks like he's taking the long way home tonight.

He grumbles over the irony of having a super-fast dragon waiting for him in the garage, and he can't even use it to get home because it's not street-legal.

He cuts through the warehouse district, hands shoved deep in his pockets.  He turns a corner and almost walks straight into a pack of Big Folk, all of them sporting leather jackets, the logo of the Timberwolves emblazoned on the backs.

Shit.  He skids to a stop, and quickly turns away to try a different route.  The last thing he wants is to tangle with the city's most notorious gang--

“Where the fuck you think you’re going?”

He freezes. 

“I—I don’t have any money…” comes a high-pitched voice.  The Timberwolves laugh.

He glances over his shoulder.  They haven’t seen him yet.  They’re looming over someone else, someone he can’t see from here.  From the way their heads angle down, he knows it’s someone much smaller than them.

“Please,” says the voice, “I’m just tryin’ ta get home…”

True-Blue’s heart catches in his throat.  This isn’t his problem.  He can just walk away.  He _should_ just walk away, if he values his hide.

“Oh we’ll make sure ya get home,” says one of the Timberwolves, smacking one fist into the palm of their other hand.  “ _After_ we check your pockets.  As a courtesy, of course.”  They draw closer, surrounding their victim.  A halfling boy, looking lost and terrified in the towering forest of their bodies.

Fuck.

“Hey!” he shouts.  “Leave the kid alone!”

The Timberwolves turn towards him.  Their faces are lean and sharp in the light of the street lamps.  They look hungry.

"Hey," says one, "it's the baby dragonrider from the Losers Gym!" 

The others snicker.

He clenches his fist.  “Y-you assholes pick on someone your own size!” 

They smile, drawing closer.  He’s much more interesting prey to them.  The halfling’s mouth drops open in surprise.  _C’mon, kid, get outta here_ , he thinks.  Every instinct tells him to get the fuck out of here, but he’s not moving until the halfling escapes first.

“Hey, we’re not pickin’ on nobody!” says a corpse-pale dragonborn, spreading his clawed hands wide.  “We just wanna make sure _somebody_ pays the proper fees for trespassing on our territory.”  He raises one scaly brow.  “You gonna pay it?”

He palms a knife.  "Don't f-fuck with me," True-Blue growls.  "I don't want any trouble--"

The hand with the knife is yanked behind him.  “Kids shouldn’t be playing with knives,” says another Timberwolf.  "And they _definitely_ shouldn't be out this late.  What are you, five?"  His captor twists his wrist sharply; True-Blue drops the knife as pain shoots up his arm. 

Another voice snorts behind him.  "Where'd he get a jacket this small?  It's like my baby brother playing dress-up."

Fuck.  He’s surrounded.

"Gimme your jacket and we'll let you go," says the voice behind him.  He turns to face a young human woman whose severely-cut hair hangs over one eye.  She smiles; her lipstick is a purple bruise color.  "I think it'll look wicked on my baby brother!"

True-Blue glances across the street, but the halfling kid is gone.  He does some swift calculations.  There's at least seven of them, and they could beat him up pretty badly or even kill him if they have a mind to it.  If he draws another knife, they’ll probably just escalate, and that would be a world of bad.  He likes his jacket, but it's not worth his life.

He shrugs the jacket off.  She grabs it by the collar and tugs it off, pushing him aside.  He stumbles, bangs his knee on the cobblestones.  Someone punches him in the cheek.  He swears, reaching for one of the knives in his boot, but his hand is grabbed and yanked back, and he thinks, _Fuck, I'm in for it now._  

"Fuck you!" he shouts.  He drives his boot heel into someone's foot, simultaneously throwing up a burst of Light to blind them.  The grip on his arm loosens and he yanks himself free and bolts down an alleyway.  He has no idea where he's going, but all that matters is that he's going away from them.

He turns a corner.  It's a dead end.  He can hear their shouts and footsteps gaining on him.  His thoughts are a stream of panicked curses.  He dives behind a stack of garbage bins, and tries to make himself small.

_If they catch me, they will kill me.  If they catch me, they will kill me._

The footsteps slow.  "Where'd that little shit-weasel go?"

He wishes Key were here.  He wishes he wasn't frozen in place, tucked behind a garbage can and hoping they don't notice him.

Another empty garbage can lays on its side between his feet and the wall.  He debates crawling into it for extra protection.  He imagines them finding him there, found out by the sound of his amplified breathing, and kicking the can along the cobblestones while he's still inside.

He stares at it.  It amplifies sound…

He pulls out all his remaining knives, the tiny throwing stilettos he tucked away all over his person.  Several were in his jacket, but he still has four on him.  That's two for each hand.  He stands up behind the full bin, and casts another Light cantrip near the ground.  The light flares in front of him, throwing his huge shadow up against the brick wall behind him.  Arms extended with fake claws, he roars as deeply as he can into the empty bin.  The sound reverberates down the alleyway, monstrous and distorted and deep.

He hears cries of panic from the far side of the alley.  "Holy shit, what is that?!"  "I dunno, man!"  "Let's get outta here--!"  Footsteps take off running.  He roars and snarls after them, waving his "claws."

Silence.  The Light flickers off, and he sinks to his knees, willing his heart to slow down before it beats its way through his ribcage.  He waits several minutes, damp leeching through his pant legs.  Then he slips his knives back into their sheaths and gets to his feet.

The halfling boy stands in the alley.

True-Blue stares.  “What’re you doing here, kid?” he asks.  “You should be home by now!  Why didn’t you run?” 

The boy smiles, and bows, and dissolves into a shimmering cloud of golden glitter.

A slow clap sounds from above.  He looks up to see a familiar face leaning out of an upper-story window of the tenement that forms one side of the alley.  It's Garl Glittergold, and he's grinning.

"Good job!" he calls down.  "I couldn't have done it better myself!"

True-Blue's cheeks burn.  "Th-that was a _prank?!"_ he cries. 

Garl shrugs.  "Well, I suppose you could call it that.  'Test' would be more accurate."

_"A test?!"_   True-Blue's fists clench, and his tail lashes in fury. 

"And you passed, with flying colors!"  Garl winks. 

"Good job, kid!" says a female voice from behind Garl's shoulder.  True-Blue recognizes the voice from the battle-axe.  "I'd throw down some confetti, but…no hands."

True-Blue wonders if it is, in fact, possible to punch a god in the face.  Instead he turns and kicks the empty garbage bin, sending it rolling down the alleyway. 

Another window opens.  "Hey kid," a burly half-orc growls, "stop making so much damn noise!  Some of us are tryin' ta sleep!"

True-Blue glares.  "Well excuse me for having a conversation!" he shouts back.  But when he looks back at the upper window, Garl is gone.

The half-orc points a finger like a club in his direction.  "That's it, I'm calling the militia!  You no-good kids are what's wrong with this neighborhood!"  And he slams the window shut.

True-Blue winces at the crack of the wood frame slamming down.  He shoves his hands in his pockets and scurries home.  The last thing he needs is more trouble. 

Nobody else bothers him on the way.

 

#

 

The regular pranks are one thing.  The other thing that drives him up a wall is Garl's Jewels.  He suspects Garl has given them a heads-up about him, because at every service over the past six months, at least one of them has waylaid him at the temple to talk about his future.  Temple services are bad enough without having some well-meaning priest sitting down next to him and asking him if he's thought about becoming a cleric.

No, he doesn't want to be a cleric.  No, he doesn't want to participate in the service.  He doesn't want to become a temple architect, or an adventuring paladin, or a community greeter, or any of the many other temple-affiliated jobs.

He just wants to build machines.  Machines make sense to him.  They don't talk back or gossip or make him feel small.  He can handle machines.

It's the day after Garl's latest stunt nearly got him shanked in a back alley, and he is not in the mood when he sees yet another gnome in the robes of a Jewel sit down in the pew next to him.  "Answer's still no," he grumbles under his breath, keeping his eyes resolutely fixed on the storyteller duo performing on the central dais.  "I've already heard the whole spiel."  Right now, he doesn't have the energy to care about being rude.

The priest beside him is silent.  The storytellers are performing the tale of how Garl acquired Arumdina, his talking battle axe.  The story makes both god and axe sound far nobler than they are in reality.  There's lots of _thee's_ and _thou's_ and high-minded proclamations.

"Quite a shiner you got there," says Garl's voice.  Before True-Blue can even react, he feels a warm finger touch his cheekbone.  The pain fades away.  "There you go, my little Utirhant.  All better!"

True-Blue looks at him, and looks away, sinking down into the pew. 

_Utirhant._   An unanticipated roll of the dice.  An unexpected move.  He’s not sure how he feels about this name.

"I could've died," he mumbles instead.

"But you didn't," says Garl.

"Why are you doing this?"  His fists clench in the pockets of his coat.  "Is it because you want me to stop building machines and, and become a cleric?  Is that what this is all about?"

"Hmm.  Do you _want_ to become a cleric?"

He shakes his head.  "Not really."

"Then don't."  Garl twirls his magnificent copper mustache.  "Unwilling clerics are the worst.  It's no fun for anyone involved, believe you me."

True-Blue frowns, and looks away.  He guesses that’s sort of a relief.  If only Garl would tell his priests to leave him the hell alone. 

Garl hums thoughtfully.  "Well then, Utirhant…who _do_ you want to be?"

He shrugs.  "I dunno.  Not a cleric."

“Interesting answer.  But I didn’t ask _what_ you wanted to be.  I asked _who_ you wanted to be.”  He leans back in the pew.  “It’s a very important distinction.”

True-Blue doesn’t know how to answer this.  He chews his lip.  “I guess…normal?  Can I just…be normal?”

Clocthi leans over towards him.  "Who you talkin' to, Cloch?"

"Just prayin' to Garl," he says automatically.

"Oh.  You gonna do the cow joke today?"

"Later," he says, also automatically. 

Clocthi just shrugs.  It's become almost a joke itself; for three years, he's asked, and for three years True-Blue has given him the same answer.  True-Blue has long ago come to accept that he’ll never approach the dais.  He’s too big a coward.

“Normal,” Garl muses.  “Like everyone else here?”

He nods.  “Yeah.  Like…like everyone else.”

“You want to be the sort of gnome who tells jokes and dances and performs up on the dais?  Is that it?”

He watches the storytellers finish their tale and bow.  The congregation applauds enthusiastically, tossing coins onto the dais.  “I guess so?” 

They look so…confident.  Like being up there is the most natural thing in the world. 

Garl grins.  “Well, here’s your chance,” he says.

True-Blue turns to ask him what he means, when Star Ruby Jella returns to the dais and picks up the microphone.  She consults a scroll in her hand.  “And our next performer is…”  She smiles.  “A first-timer to the dais.  Please welcome Dwimly Drew True-Blue Utirhant Wrenchfell Cloch Davenport.”

True-Blue’s stomach drops to his feet.  His mouth opens and closes, but he has no words.

Garl’s grin widens.  “I took the liberty of adding your name to the line-up for today.”

"What?!” he finally squeaks.  “I…I can't do this!"  He glances between Garl and Jella and his family.  His parents look surprised.  A few of his siblings give him encouraging smiles and thumbs-up.  Far from encouraging him, though, the sight just makes his heart wither.

"Are you scared?" asks Garl.

"Of course I'm scared!"

"Oh good!  Only fools are fearless, as I like to say."  He claps True-Blue on the back.  "Have courage!  You'll do fine."

"Just pretend everyone's naked," Arumdina adds.

"C'mon, Cloch!" Clocthi pipes up.  "Tell 'em the joke!"

He sits frozen to the pew.  Up on the dais, Jella is waving him forward.  Others are turning to look at him.  "I--I can't--"

Garl leans close to him.  "Do you wish you were the sort of person who could?"

He squeezes his eyes shut.  "Yes," he squeaks.  Gods, he wishes he were brave.

Garl's lips twitch in a smile.  "Bravery is merely choosing to take action.  That choice is always yours to make."  He lifts a finger and twirls it, one copper eyebrow arching.  “And as a general rule, we should honor our family obligations.”

True-Blue has never been nudged by a god before.  It’s not like being possessed, not like being yanked like a puppet on strings to do something he doesn’t want to do.  Because this _is_ something he wants to do.  He wants to make Clocthi proud.  He wants to impress his family, his warren.  He wants to be brave.

It’s like making a decision and finding his heart beating more lightly for it.  It’s like stepping onto a path and finding Garl already waiting there, beaming with pride.  He’s halfway down the aisle before he realizes what he’s doing, his small courage burning like a coal inside him, Garl’s presence like a hand supporting his back.  He’s on the central dais before he even thinks to be afraid.

And then he takes the mic, and looks out at his warren, and he is afraid.

He can't see either Garl or Clocthi in the audience.  The overhead lights are so bright, the rest of the congregation seems like a sea of faceless shadows.  He takes a deep breath, and lifts the mic to his face.

"So there's a, um," he says.  "There's this farmer?"  The lights are so bright, and everyone's _staring_ at him.  Sweat prickles on the back of his neck.  "And this, um, this farmer is counting his…his _cows_ , and." 

His eyes are beginning to adjust.  He can see Jella and the other Jewels watching him with thoughtful interest in the front row.  Some of them are giving him encouraging smiles.  Jella is nodding.

He keeps going.  "And they're in a pasture, when he counts them."  Shit, it's all out of order.  "Grazing, you know?  Like…cows do."  He winces.  Of course they know that.  What is he even babbling?  It's not even a long joke!  It's just two sentences. 

How could he be fucking it up this badly?

He blinks, eyes watering in the bright lights.  He stares blankly at the microphone in his hands, but it offers him no aid.  All it does is amplify his failure so the whole warren can hear.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, and shoves the microphone back into its stand.  He leaves the dais, ignores Jella calling to him, ignores his family as he speedwalks down the aisle and out the door.  He doesn't look up to see if Garl is still sitting in the pew, he doesn't look up to see the inevitable disappointment in Clocthi's face.  He doesn't.  He can't. 

He's not brave enough.

 

#

 

There's a knock at his door.  "Go away," he snarls.

The door opens, because of course it fucking does.

"Hey," says Clocthi. 

True-Blue rolls over in bed to see his kid brother standing in the doorway.  His anger crumbles into shame.  "Hey," he says.  "Um.  Sorry for messing up your joke."

Clocthi pads over to the bed and sits next to him.  "No, it was actually really cool of you!  I just wanted to say, you know…thanks."

True-Blue shrugs.  "Whatever," he mumbles into his pillow.  "You're probably the only person in the whole warren who thinks that was cool.  I couldn't even finish the joke."

"Oh no, the joke sucked," Clocthi agrees with a laugh.  "But that wasn't the cool part."

True-Blue looks up from his pillow.  "Okay, dummy, what was the cool part?"

Clocthi whaps him good-naturedly with the tip of his tail.  "You're the dummy!  Didn't you even notice?"  He grins.  "You didn't even stutter once!"

 

#

 

It's three in the morning, the city streets are empty, and True-Blue is performing his final checks on the engine.  His dragon, the Streetslicer, is a strange creature in the garage, with an outsized engine and a patchwork chassis and rear wheels bigger than its front wheels.  Its throaty engine seems too loud for its narrow frame.  It doesn't even have a hood over the engine; he and Key had tried adding one, but quickly discovered that the over-juiced arcane core needed free-flowing air to prevent overheating.  And so the dragon's mouth is permanently open, blue fire crackling in her jaw.  

He glances around the garage.  Other dragonriders are suiting up, getting ready to roll out to the racetrack.  But Key isn't here yet, and their empty co-pilot seat is freaking him out.

"Hey, I'm here!" Key says, finally stumbling into the garage.  Their face is pale and their eyes are red-rimmed, and the smile they give True-Blue is tired.  They wipe their nose with a handkerchief.  They're followed by a dwarf in a grease-stained jumpsuit.   

"Key!" says True-Blue.  "Are you…okay?  You look awful."

"Yeah, man, I'm pretty sick, actually," they say.  "I shouldn't even be out of bed but I didn't wanna leave you hanging."  They lean against a worktable, as if the walk over here has exhausted them.  "I can't race, TeeBee.  I'm real sorry about that.  But I got you a sub."  They gesture to the dwarf. 

The dwarf nods.  “Falin Stonebite,” he says, thrusting out a callused hand.  “Och, pleased ta’ meet ya.”

“True-Blue,” he replies.

“Falin’s a friend of a friend,” says Key.  “He used to run the circuit back in the day, still works in the garages.  He knows his stuff.”

True-Blue gives the dwarf a long, cautious look.  He doesn’t like the idea of switching his co-pilot right before the race, especially with a stranger.  But he’s not gonna force Key to race when they’re sick.  And if Key trusts this person…

“Och, I’ll do ye proud!” says the dwarf, his accent thick as a mudslide.  “This here yer rig?  Quite a fine beaut, if I say so meself!  Is that an amplifier ring ye’ve hooked up ta tha’ core?”

“Yeah,” says True-Blue.  He glances up at Key, who gives him a thumbs-up.  He sighs.  “So, uh…Falin?  You know what you’re supposed to do here, right?”

Falin grins through his thick beard.  “Watch yer back,” he says.  “Tell ye where ta go.  Believe me, I been doin’ this since ye were in wee diapers!”

True-Blue shrugs.  “Okay, whatever.  Get in, or we’re gonna be late.”  He slips into the front seat and straps in.  Falin squeezes his way in, grunting; the back seat was made for Key’s tall, lithe frame, and while Falin will have plenty of leg room, the seat is a bit too narrow for his sturdy dwarven girth.

“Och, ready whene’er ye are, kid!” he says.

True-Blue glances at Key, who gives him a jaunty salute.  He takes a deep breath, and starts the engine.

 

#

 

The race rules are, in theory, simple.  Get to the finish line first.  Don’t die.

The starting line is at one end of the city.  The finish line is at the other.  Between the two is a maze of ever-changing hazards, including the militia.

A dozen dragons growl at the starting line.  Some are sleek and sinuous, others are riddled with spikes and claws.  One gunmetal-gray dragon pulls up alongside the Streetslicer, and a familiar face leers at True-Blue.

“Hee-ey, baby dragonrider!” says the woman with the purple lipstick.  “My kid brother loves his new jacket!”

His shaking fingers clench the steering wheel.

“Your parents know you’re out this late?” says her co-pilot, the lanky dragonborn with the corpse-white scales.  “’Cause it’s way past your bedtime.”

“Och, pay ‘em no mind,” says Falin.  “Ye know what ye’re doin’.”

The Stone of Farspeech crackles to life.  “Current route is clear.  Northwest Boulevard to Lilac Pass, left at the overpass, straight shot down Main to the canal.”  The directions are given from a central location, and all the dragonriders hear the same message, so nobody has an advantage.  Pinned to the back of the front seat is a city map that Falin will have to keep an eye on, directing True-Blue as the course changes. 

A glum-looking drow stalks out to the starting line and lifts a red flag.  “Start ‘em up,” he growls.

True-Blue closes his eyes and revs the engine.  He feels it thrumming through his whole body.  His heartbeat pounds in his ears.  He’s nervous as hell, but there’s no place else he’d rather be.

The Streetslicer’s engine crackles with blue lightning.  He smiles.  “Let’s show ‘em what we got,” he says.

The flag drops.  He hits the gas. 

The Streetslicer launches forward, roaring.  He’s pressed into the back of his seat by the sheer force of his launch, and he laughs, giddy as the street flies past him.  A red dragon painted with flames nudges close on the right.  He rolls the wheel left, just a little, just enough to give him space.  The Streetslicer jerks left, and he swings right again to avoid crashing into an electric-blue dragon coming up on that side.

“Steady, girl,” he says, even though the machine can’t hear him. 

“Och, yer steerin’s a bit whippy,” Falin comments.

The Stone crackles.  “Pedestrians at the intersection of Northwest and Baker.  Rerouting down Muleback Street.”

Falin grumbles.  “Next left!”

True-Blue yanks the wheel.  The Streetslicer fishtails in the curve, wheels screaming on the cobblestones.  True-Blue wrestles with the wheel to straighten her out.  It’s like managing a bucking horse. 

There’s a screech of metal behind and to the left.  “What was that?”

“Och, I think that there Timberwolf jes’ had a snack.”

He glances in the side-view mirror.  He sees flames, smoke, the Wolves’ gunmetal-gray dragon streaking up the road towards him.  Hungry for more.

He presses down on the accelerator.  “C’mon, girl,” he says.  He’s a little ahead of the gray dragon but he’s not sure if it’ll last—

A loud crack sounds on the right.  The red dragon is right beside him, and the co-pilot has smacked the side of his windscreen with a hammer, sending spiderweb cracks through the glass.

"Falin, what are you doing?!" he roars.  "Take care of that!"  He banks left, trying to get some space between them.

"Oh right!  That's me?" 

"I thought you said you knew what you were doing!"  He glances behind to see if the dwarf is doing anything at all to fight off their opponents.  The red dragon is closing the gap again. 

"Aye, an' I stan' by that!" says Falin, fumbling to stand up and draw his wrench like it's a weapon.  "But these 'ere new machines're--"

"Less talking, more defending!" True-Blue cries.

"Look out!" the wrench shouts in a very familiar female voice.

True-Blue looks ahead of him and barely has time to yank the wheel to avoid slamming into a fruit cart.  The wheels screech as he turns left down a side-alley.  He's off-course now, driving blind.

He sucks in a deep breath, keeps driving.  Tries to imagine the layout of the city, and what streets might get him back on track.

Behind him, Garl lets out a long breath.  "Well," he says, "I guess the jig is up--"

"I already knew."

Garl drops his disguise.  "You did?  What gave it away?"

True-Blue grips the wheel like it's the only sure thing in his life.  "Come on," he says through gritted teeth.  "Key gets sick on the day of the big race?  And they just happen to have a perfect sub?"  He glances at Garl in the rear view mirror.  "Every weird coincidence in my life comes back to you."  He turns down Miller Lane, deftly guiding the Streetslicer past a line of merchant stalls.  "And that accent was awful."

"He's got ya there, Garl," says Arumdina.  “I told you we should’ve gone with the halfling disguise.”

Garl sighs.  "Well.  I suppose you want me to leave, Utirhant?"

True-Blue grinds his teeth together.  "I can't do this race alone," he says.  "You know that."  He sighs.  "Not that I'll have much shot at catching up now."

"Don't give up so easily, my Utirhant!  I got you into this mess.  Let's see what I can do to get you back on track.  Take the next right, up here."

True-Blue turns the wheel and finds himself on a side-street he doesn't recognize.  "Okay?  Now what?"

He can hear the smile in Garl's voice.  "Now, we make things more interesting."

The world unfolds around him.

The road splits in two mirror-images, both curving up along the sides of tenement buildings that are themselves tilting up and over his head, dividing into yet more mirror-copies.  Straight lines become angles, brick walls slide around each other.  It's like the city has become an intricate fractal puzzle-box, its panels opening up to reveal yet more cities inside it.

"Holy shit!" he screams.

"Language!" Arumdina sings.  "Wait, who am I kidding?  I'm a fucking battle-axe!"

True-Blue maneuvers the Streetslicer with desperate speed, trying to avoid careening into multiplying market stalls and piles of crates.  "What are you doing?!"  The dragon's side catches on the corner of a brick wall, and metal screams against stone.

"Making a shortcut, of course!" says Garl.  "I suggest not panicking."

The road lifts up in front of him and he sails over a gap of starry night sky.  And then the Streetslicer plunges through a veil of water before landing on the cobblestones again.

"What the hell was that?!"

"Elemental Plane of Water," says Garl.  "My mistake!  Cutting through the planes like this can get a little dicey."

"Oh gods…"

"Yes?"

True-Blue ignores him, turning the wheel wildly, weaving through a cluster of identical fountains blooming in the center of a plaza.  The Streetslicer's back wheels fishtail on the last turn.  He yanks on the steering wheel, trying to straighten out as the world spins around him.  "I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die--!"

He bangs his elbow on the door as the dragon stops her spinning and screeches forward.  The cobbles transform into a brick wall beneath them.  He's driving up the side of a tenement building, straight towards the sky.  He hits the roofline and he's in the air, and the world vanishes in a cloud of blue dust.

Time slows to a crawl.  He hangs suspended between the seconds.  He can see every mote of dust drifting past his cracked windscreen.  An hour passes between each heartbeat, each breath.  The Streetslicer's motor hums.

"Am I…dead?" he asks, staring at the dust.

Garl chuckles softly behind him.  "This is the Demiplane of Time, not the Astral Plane.  You're not dead, my Utirhant.  But you are almost alive."

His throat is dry.  "Almost?" 

"So close.  So close to being fully alive."  Garl's voice is just at his ear, or inside his head, or inside his heart.  "You can do this, Utirhant.  You know what this machine is capable of.  You know because you've built her yourself.  And she knows what you're capable of, because she has built you.  You've built each other.  Listen to her, Utirhant."

The Streetslicer's engine purrs.  Lightning crackles like dragonbreath.  Too-large pistons pump like a heartbeat.

He can feel every night he's spent with her.  Every moment planning, building, tweaking.  Reacting to her quirks, kicking his toolbox in frustration and storming away and coming back and fixing her till she hums, till she's complete.  Till he's shaped his heart around her and accepted her as his.  Every modification feeds smoothly into another.  Every bizarre workaround flowers through her form in strange and unexpected beauty. 

He breathes.  In, out.

The dust parts.  The world has flipped, and he's at the top of a road pointing straight down.

He grips the wheel, and slams the accelerator.

The Streetslicer plunges with a triumphant shriek like a diving falcon.  The city rebuilds itself around them, buildings blooming and bridges leaping over each other and he drives, she drives, they drive--down the side of a building and across the side of another and on the underside of the cobblestone roads.  A bridge springs up beneath them, a curving span that launches them into the sky and catches them on the other side.  And True-Blue and the Streetslicer dance through it all, effortlessly, True-Blue deftly maneuvering her through this sliced-up puzzle-box city as it realigns and settles itself around them.  They sail down a corkscrew alley that unspools into a straight line, and then they're streaking into a broad boulevard, right into a whole pack of roaring dragons.

A sickening crunch of metal brings True-Blue back into the present.  The Timberwolves' gray beast has devoured another opponent, the red dragon, right in front of him.  He banks right to avoid the flaming wreckage.  The heat stings his eyes.

The Streetslicer roars, building speed on the straightaway, closing the gap between him and the lead.  A green dragon with brilliant yellow stripes pulls up behind him, the halfling co-pilot leaning out to aim a club at the glass right next to True-Blue's head.

A cloud of golden butterflies bursts out of the Streetslicer's back seat.  The halfling falls back into his seat.  "They're in my eyes!" he screeches, and the green dragon veers as the butterflies cover the driver's windshield.

"Whooo!" Garl sings.  "Take _that!_ "

"Yeah, fuck you, assholes!" Arumdina shouts as their opponent spins away.

"Um, is it cheating to have a god in my backseat?" True-Blue asks. 

Garl snorts.  "That was just a cantrip," he said.  "I'm all for bending the non-existent rules in all-out death races, but I don't want to make it _too_ easy for you."

"When have you ever made things easy for me?"

Arumdina laughs.  "He's got you again, Garl!"

The Streetslicer pulls up between the gray dragon and the electric blue one.  True-Blue can see the finish line at the far end of the boulevard.  It's a clear shot, down the wide cobbled street and over the wide stone bridge that spans the canal.

The pale dragonborn leers at him, revealing a mouth full of pointed teeth.  "Hey, it's the little baby dragonrider!" he crows. 

"Time to put him down for a nap!" says the driver, flashing her bruise-purple smile.  "Light him up!"

"With pleasure!"  And the dragonborn lobs something at the Streetslicer.  Not at the windshield, not at True-Blue or his co-pilot, but straight into her jaws.  The arcane core bursts, belching out smoke and sparks.  The crackling blue light sputters dangerously, a candle about to be blown out.

The Streetslicer slows as the blue and gray dragons pull ahead.  He slams the accelerator.  "Come on, come on!"  He hits the dial that controls the amplifier ring, and the etched runes glow, but the core only gives another half-hearted sputter.  The engine whines as it winds down.  "No, no, no!"

He knows every inch of the Streetslicer.  He knows every quirk, every bizarre mod.  The engine's winding down but it hasn't stopped yet, because its overlarge pistons have too much inertia.  If he shocks the core with a burst of power all at once, it may be enough…

He releases the ignition button, letting her coast.  He turns the amplifier ring's dial all the way up.  He takes a deep breath.  And he slams the ignition and the accelerator at the same time.

The core bursts to life.  The runes flare so brilliantly that he blinks against the light.  The Streetslicer leaps forward, roaring, flinging him back against the seat. 

But the power boost is momentary.  The core flashes and sputters, in danger of going out again.

"Come on, girl!" he says.  "You can do this!”  They've come this far.  They're so close to the end.  _“We_ can do this!"    

The core crackles again, blue lighting coursing through it.  And--

True-Blue blinks, not sure what he's seeing.  Weaving between the flashes of lightning are thin threads of white light.  They wrap around the core, and there's a white-hot blast and a triumphant roar--and the Streetslicer launches forward, the core glowing as bright and steady as a star in her jaws.

He doesn't have time to wonder what he's just seen.  He's tearing down the straightaway, but the gray and blue dragons are nearly at the bridge, ramming against each other.

Their bumpers catch.  They twist and spin out of control together, slamming against the stone pillars on either side of the bridge.  Flames burst from both dragons.

A pile of fiery wreckage blocks the bridge. 

A pile of lumber forms a ramp nearby.

“Bravery is a choice you can make,” says Garl.

He doesn’t know if the ramp is a coincidence, or a gift from Garl, left over from the realigned city.  He only knows that if he brakes right now, he can stop in time.  He has a split second to decide, less than the length of a heartbeat.

He hits the accelerator.

The Streetslicer revs, her core shining as she tears her way down the cobblestones.  He grips the wheel, braces himself.  “Come on, girl!”

They hit the ramp.  It crumbles under their weight but they’re up and over, they’re catching air, they’re sailing over the canal—

They land on the other side with a hard, axle-crunching jolt.  The Streetslicer’s wheels catch dirt and she spins, taking them past the finish line in a whirlwind of dust.

She comes to a stop.  The engine dies down, the star extinguished. 

For a moment, there is silence.  Just the empty city street and the soft shift of dust through the cool air.

"Whooo!" Garl cheers from the back seat.  "I haven't had this much fun in a long time!"

"That was some pretty sweet driving, Emissary," Arumdina admits.  "Utirhant the Unexpected, indeed!"

True-Blue is silent in the front seat, fingers clutching the front wheel, white-knuckled.  His whole body is rigid, his heart is pounding in his throat, and he feels like he'll collapse if he loosens his grip.  He sucks breath in through his clenched jaw.

The city still spins slowly around him.  He doesn’t—

What just happened? 

"Utirhant, you did great!" says Garl, leaning forward to clap him on the shoulder.  True-Blue gasps at the contact.

Garl's mirthful laughter dies down.  "You're not hurt, are you?" he asks.

True-Blue pulls his goggles off and sags into his seat.  "Why did you choose me?" he asks, his voice rough and barely audible.  "I'm not…"  He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. 

He hears Garl sigh through his nose.  "Listen," he says, and his voice is so gentle, so kind.  "Divination isn't really my…thing.  I can't see the future and my Jewels aren't known for prophecy.  But I have a feeling--call it a hunch, call it divine inspiration, what have you--that you're going to be a very important person one day.  Someone that the gnome race is going to be very proud of."

"But I'm not," says True-Blue.  He hates how much he sounds like he's whining, to a _god_ of all beings.  He turns to face Garl, kneeling on the seat cushion, hands now gripping the headrest.  "I'm not gonna be important.  I'm…I just wanna be left alone to build machines and…"  He squeezes his eyes shut, and is mortified to find tears slipping down his cheeks.  "Can't you…pick someone else?"

"Pick someone else?"  Both Garl's copper-bright eyebrows lift.  "'Fraid no can do.  I've already told the whole pantheon.  I've written your name into the Book and everything."  He leans back in the seat, hands clasped behind his head as if True-Blue's feelings mean nothing before his own personal convenience.

True-Blue pinches the bridge of his nose.  Faint traces of a long-ago vision return to him, of Garl toasting him at a table full of gnomes, his whole pantheon all cheering for him.  The thought makes him sick with embarrassment. 

"But you only chose me as a prank," he says, throat tight.  "Because I'm the last person in the world who should be your emissary."  He bites his bottom lip, looks away.  "I build machines and you break them, I try to race and you—you flip the city upside-down?!  Like this is just some lark to you?  I didn't want--I don't wanna be just a _joke_ to you!"

Garl's eyebrows lift.  "You're not a joke!  You're a very important person to me."

"Kid, don't sell yourself short," Arumdina adds.

True-Blue sinks low in the seat, pressing his forehead against the leather padding.  He wishes he could keep sinking, through the bottom of the Streetslicer and into the earth.  "Please, just…can't you pick someone else?" he asks.  "Someone who fits better.  Someone who can deal with all this!  Someone who likes pranks and who can tell jokes and who can make people like them!”

Garl is silent for a long time.  True-Blue squeezes his eyes shut, breathes in the scent of leather and engine grease.

He hears the creak of the backseat as Garl leans forward.  “You’ll always be my Utirhant,” he says, very gently.  “But what that means is up to you.”

True-Blue takes one more hitching breath, and looks up.  But his co-pilot seat is empty, and he is alone.            


	3. IPRE

"Hey, Key, I need a favor."  True-Blue hands a small slip of paper to his friend.  "Which of these names do you think, uh, Big Folk would take the most seriously?"

He watches Key's expression as they eye the list.  He is eighteen years old, and nervous as hell.

_Dwimly Drew Wrenchfell Cloch Olmalum Davenport._   He's left off True-Blue, and its diminutive TeeBee, because that would give it away.  He's left off Utirhant because…just because.

"Take seriously?"  Both Key's eyebrows lift as they read down the list.  

He shrugs.  "Yeah, like, if you met people with those names, which one would be someone you'd listen to?  Someone, I dunno…respectable?"

Key smiles.  "Hmm…I think I'd say Davenport.  That sounds like someone who knows what they're talking about."  They hand back the list, and there's a wry smile in the corner of their mouth.  "Davenport sounds like a serious fellow."  One perfect silver eyebrow lifts.  "But he's still gotta earn my respect, if he wants it."

He nods.  "Thanks."  He tucks the sheet away.

Key folds their arms and leans against the workbench.  "So, those are your names, then?"

True-Blue's face grows warm. 

Key laughs.  "S'okay, TeeBee!  My dad's Underdark home was right next to a rock gnome settlement.  I've picked up a few things.  For one thing, I know I'm a lucky person, getting to hear all your names.  That trust means a lot."

He shrugs.  "It's not like they're sacred mysteries," he says.  He turns back to a half-built engine on the workbench, re-aligning a crooked panel that's been driving him nuts.  "We just don't share them because…well, Big Folk don't always get it.  I guess having a bunch of names that are always changing is confusing?  I'm…not explaining this well."

"Nah, that was pretty clear.  Hell, my parents freaked when I said I wanted to go by Keygan."  Key tilts their head.  "So…you gonna start going by Davenport, now?"

He slides the panel into place and tightens the bolts.  "It's for a job application."

"Lookit you!  Goin' legit."  They grin.  "Do I still get to call you TeeBee?"

He smiles.  "I wouldn't have it any other way."

 

#

 

That night, he pulls out the application for the Institute of Planar Research, Engineering Division.  At the very top, next to the word _Name,_ he writes 'Davenport.'  His tail twitches in excitement.

Davenport was the name his parents gave him.  He's glad it's the one he's taking with him into this new world. 

 

#

 

He is not the first gnome to be accepted into the IPR.  But it's still an auspicious occasion.  The IPR's standards are notoriously high, their reputation impeccable.  They take only the best and the brightest.  To say you work for them is to say you're a person who knows what you're talking about. 

So it's a good day for him when his uniform and ID badge arrive in the mail.  Several of his younger siblings and cousins _ooh_ and _aah_ as he shows off the bright red jacket.  There's also a red jumpsuit for his messier work in the machine shop, but it's not nearly as impressive-looking.  So it's the jacket he wears for them.

He gets treated to a big family dinner that lasts long into the night.  And when it's over he retires to his room, tired but satisfied, and admires his new uniform one more time in the mirror. 

He clasps his hands behind his back, stands up straight.  "I am Davenport of the Institute of Planar Research," he says in a clear and confident voice.

He is still Garl's emissary.  He can feel it on a gut level, like there's a door somewhere in his heart that he can open at any time, if he really wants to.  But he leaves it shut.  And Garl hasn't come barging into his life for a while.  His weird luck tapered off dramatically after the big race two years ago; it never quite disappeared, but his life became far more manageable.  Closer to normal.  And though occasionally he passes a stranger who gives him Garl's warm smile and a knowing nod, that's been the extent of their communication.

He has no plans to seek out that connection again.  He's Davenport now.  Crisp uniform, official name badge, hair immaculately slicked back.  Not a lost punk kid anymore.  And definitely not some god's divine prank.

"Well," he says.  "What do you think of me now?"  He can't keep a little smugness from his voice. 

He’s startled by a burst of laughter behind him, accompanied by applause.  He turns on his feet, but there’s nobody else in the room.

For the first time in years, he hears Garl’s voice.  “You sure showed me!” he chortles.  The sound seems to come from everywhere in the room, or maybe just inside his head.  “The Joker picks an emissary and he grows up to be the most straight-laced gnome in the warren?  Why, I haven’t been pranked this well in ages!  Good job!”

Davenport presses his fingers against his forehead. 

Fuck.

 

#

 

“So, I gotta warn you,” says Kairon, “Helen’s parties tend to be…pretty off the hook.”

Davenport looks up at his teifling co-worker and gives him a confident smile that he doesn’t quite feel.  “Hey, if I can handle Tompkins trying to slash our budget again, I can handle a loud party.”

He’s pretty sure this is true.  He’s older now, he’s been at the Institute for almost seven years.  It’s high time he attempts at least some form of social activity with his team. 

They’d made overtures, at first.  Invited him to the bar after work, tossed out the occasional party invitation.  But parties were never his thing.  Not to mention the niggling fear in the back of his head that all of the fragile respect he’d fought for would crumble to nothing the moment they saw him drunk. 

The invitations stopped coming, after a while.

But it hasn’t escaped him that his teammates often come to the lab the day after a get-together with newfound inspiration and renewed excitement.  Apparently they’re talking shop after hours, and his interest has been piqued by whatever social synergy they’re tapping into.

And Kairon has become a friend.  So when he approaches Davenport with the first invitation he’s received in years, he finds himself saying yes.  And now he’s at the doorstep of a fairly large house belonging to Kairon’s friend Helen.  Lights glare from the windows like spotlights, and loud music pounds at the inside of the door, as if it could burst open at any moment.

Kairon chuckles at his comment.  “The look on his face when you chewed him out was priceless,” he said, knocking at the door.  “I wouldn’t have had the guts.”

“Tompkins isn’t nearly as powerful as he likes to believe,” he says.  “It’s easy enough to take the wind out of that asshole’s sails.”

“True.  And the upper brass know they’d be idiots to shut down the department when we have you.”

Davenport shrugs off the compliment.  “Everything we do is a team effort,” he says.  “I’m not gonna hog all the glory for everyone’s hard work.”

“No, but…"  Kairon raises an eyebrow.  "You do realize you’re keeping the entire department going, right?  Projects that would’ve stumped and stalled us for months just…get solved when you work on them.  You have the miracle touch.”

“Oh, well I don’t think that’s the case—"

“It is so the case!”  Kairon chuckles.  “I swear I’m not pulling your tail!  Why do you think they keep pushing all these challenging projects onto you, when you don’t even have seniority?”  He lifts a finger to stop Davenport answering.  “Because they know that however weird or intractable a problem, you’ll find a way to solve it.”

Davenport is stunned into momentary silence.  He had no idea this was going on behind the scenes.  He had no idea he was considered some kind of, what, a star engineer?  “It’s…it’s not a miracle,” he says, trying to laugh off the idea.  “It’s just hard work and—and a good education.  I had some great teachers, growing up.”  Which is true.  There was no shortage of excellent engineers in his warren, and between them and the dragonriders, Davenport had plenty of people to learn from.

“You must’ve had a hell of a teacher,” says Kairon.  “What, did they break stuff all the time just to see how you’d fix it?”

He opens his mouth, shuts it again. 

Kairon sighs, shaking his head.  He knocks on the door more loudly, trying to get someone’s attention over the pounding pulse of the music.  “Sometimes I feel like I could work at the IPR for my entire life and still not come up with the kinds of solutions you toss out before breakfast.  Everything you do is just…completely unexpected.”

Davenport blinks.  “What?”

And then the door opens, and they’re welcomed inside before Kairon can answer the question.

The smell of alcohol and sweat and salty finger foods hits Davenport’s sensitive nose.  He winces at the throbbing music and the flashing, multicolored lights.  His vision has only just barely adjusted by the time Kairon leads him to a couch at the side of the crowded main room.  The teifling is looking around, tail twitching uncertainly.  Davenport feels slightly better knowing that Kairon is feeling as nervous and awkward as he is.

So…he’s at a party.  The room is almost too loud for conversation.  He doesn’t recognize anyone.  Now what?

“So, um.  It’s pretty loud in here,” he says.

“Y-yeah, it sure is.”  Kairon is already sweating in the stuffy, close-packed room.  He tries to avoid thwapping his tail against an elf who’s passed out on the couch.  “Look, if this isn’t your scene, we can split at any time—”

“Kaaaiii-ron!” a high-pitched voice squeals.  A skinny human woman with black hair and a sharp face wanders out of the crowd, waving a hand at him.  “You came!”  Her steps are wobbly and her face is flushed with alcohol.  She sees Davenport, and her wide grin, which already seems to be splitting her face in half, somehow manages to grow even wider.  “And you brought your gnome friend!  Excellent!”  She signals someone in the crowd and is quickly handed a pair of beers.  She thrusts the frothing mugs into their hands.  “I’m Helen,” she says, holding out a hand.

“Davenport,” he says cordially, shaking the offered hand.  Trying to ignore the scent of alcohol that rolls off of her. 

“You know,” she says, speaking loudly and slowly over the music, “when I heard Kairon had a gnome on his team, I told him, I said, you need to invite him along!  The more the merrier.”

Kairon smiles, but there’s a nervous edge to it.  “Y-yeah…” he says.  “Um, Helen, I think—”

“He didn’t even want to invite you,” she continues, her smile a rictus, her words rolling out of her like a boulder tumbling down a hill.  “I thought, that’s crazy!  Could you believe it?  Who wouldn’t want a gnome at their party?”

Davenport’s skin grows cold.  His fingers tighten over the handle of the mug.  “Excuse me?”

"I just didn't think it was your thing--" Kairon sputters.

She waves a limp hand at him, cutting Kairon off.  “I mean, everyone knows the party doesn’t start until the gnome joins in.  So?”  She fixes her gaze on him.  “Go on!”

Red begins to crawl at the edges of his vision.  He glances at Kairon, who’s mouthing _I’m sorry_ and tilting his head at Helen as if this is somehow all her fault.  Like he had nothing to do with it.

He clears his throat.  “I don’t know what you’re asking me to do,” he says, trying to keep his voice level.  But he knows, down in the pit of his stomach, exactly what she’s asking him to do.

“Uh, Helen,” Kairon tries, in a strangled voice, “Davenport isn’t really…like that—”

“Oh, you know!”  Helen winks at Davenport, utterly ignoring Kairon.  “Do your little…gnome thing.  Sing, dance, do some weird acrobatic tricks with the kegs, whatever!”

He bites his lip.  There’s a roar in his head and it’s not the music.  Very slowly, he hands his mug to Kairon.  “I’m sorry,” he says between clenched teeth, “but there appears to be a mistake.”  And he turns and leaves.

He hears Kairon try to follow him out, shouting apologies over the music, but he ignores him, speedwalking out the door and into the cold night air.  He has no reason to listen to anything Kairon has to say.

They’re not friends, after all.  They’re just co-workers.

 

#

 

When he returns to the lab that night, he throws on his flight suit and hops into one of the experimental aircraft he helped design and build.  It’s not the first time he’s gone on an illicit late-night joyride, but right now he needs to clear his head, needs to get as far away from the world and its expectations as possible.

The aircraft sails up through the night sky and penetrates a deep layer of cloud.  He can feel the world and all its problems falling away behind him, obscured by the cloud layer.  And then he’s through.  Davenport finds himself suddenly alone in the night sky, a sea of clouds below him and an endless expanse of stars on every side.  For a moment, he stops breathing.

He makes his decision, and finds his heart beating more lightly.  Like he's stepped onto a path and found himself already waiting there.

He's going to space, even if he has to build the ship himself.

(Later, he confesses this moment to only one other person at the Institute:  a nervous but brilliant colleague by the unlikely name of Barry Bluejeans.  It is late, and they are both tipsy, and they are testing Barry's hypothesis that emotional connection is also a form of bond energy.  Davenport is both thrilled and a little scared that the hypothesis proves to be true.)

The next morning, he applies for the IPR's command track.  He's never thought of himself as a leader, but the upper brass won't go to space just because a random engineer thinks it might be cool, no matter what they think of his skills.  He needs to have a bigger voice, one that can't be so easily ignored or dismissed.

No gnome has ever joined the command track before.  Memories of the disastrous party haunt him as he fills out the application, as he is tested, as he is interviewed by senior officials.  He didn’t even have to dance for anyone’s entertainment for most of the Institute to have already written him off.  They've already decided he doesn't have what it takes to do this.  So he pushes himself twice as hard, keeps his demeanor twice as serious, daring them to find a flaw in his skills or his character.

Even Davenport doesn't know if he has what it takes to do this.  But bravery is a choice he can make.

 

#

 

He is surprised by how much his new role suits him.  People listen when he talks.  People take him seriously.  For once in his life, it's okay that he's stand-offish, that his heart is walled off behind a fortress.  He doesn't take anyone's bullshit anymore.  He expects the best of his subordinates, and while some quail under his steady, cool gaze, far more of them strive to reach and exceed those expectations.  He is continuously impressed by what they are capable of when he gives them just a deft nudge in the right direction.

Nobody invites him to parties anymore, but that's all right.  He has his work.  He has the respect of his superiors and his subordinates.  He has his dream of breaking free of this world and sailing to the stars.

They make him a captain. 

The first morning he puts on the new uniform, with its gold epaulets and its shining buttons in two rows down the double-breasted front, he stares at himself in the mirror.  And he realizes that he's finally made it.  He has never felt so fully _himself_ in his life.  This is who he was always meant to be.

The Light of Creation falls from the sky.

 

#

 

"Thank you for coming, Captain.  We wanted to discuss your recommendations for the mission crew."

Davenport clears his throat.  "I would be happy to field any questions you may have about my selections."

Raised eyebrows from the gathered senior brass.  Director Fortinbras looks over a folder open before him, adjusting gold-rimmed glasses.  "It's just that we have some concerns," he says.  "All of your selections are talented, accomplished, there's no question of that--"

"Then there shouldn't be any problem," says Davenport.

Fortinbras grunts.  "The _concern_ is that there were several more qualified candidates for some of the crew positions.  Yet you seem to have overlooked them in favor of…more unusual choices."

"Mr. Burnsides was caught in one of the labs after-hours," says Tompkins, "deadlifting a steel worktable on which Dr. Hallwinter was sleeping--"

"Dr. Bluejeans," Davenport corrects.  His own people might be loose with names, but Bluejeans is what Barry has chosen for himself, and so that is the name Davenport will honor.

Tompkins' lip curls.  "And when he was asked why, he said, and I quote, 'Training, duh.'"

"Not to mention the rumors of Dr. Highchurch's…unusual relationship with plants," says Assistant Director Lewings.

"He's not even the best medic on the campus," adds Tompkins, "let alone among the pool of _very_ qualified medical professionals whom you appear to have overlooked."

Davenport keeps his face expressionless.  "A machine isn't a pile of parts, Director,” he says, ignoring Tompkins.  “It's all those parts working together to create a single whole.  I've seen these candidates working together, training together.  And I will admit some of them are a little rough around the edges.  But when they're together, they…they become whole.  They create something greater than the sum of their parts."  He raises an eyebrow.  "I'm an engineer, Director.  You asked me to build a team that works, and this is what I've built.  I believe they will not only get the job done, but they will exceed your expectations."

There's a pause after his words land.  Fortinbras takes a moment to remove his glasses and wipe the lenses before perching them back on his nose.  "Well, Captain," he says, "you do have a reputation for, ah…unexpected solutions.  And yet you always make it work."  He holds up a hand to forestall Tompkins' protest.  "I look forward to seeing what you and your team can do."

Davenport smiles, holding down the churning in his gut.  "Thank you, sir."

 

#

 

He stands in an abandoned banquet hall.  It feels familiar, but he can't quite place it.  The colors are washed out, and the cavernous space echoes with a silence that seems out of place.  The whole place seems translucent, almost ghostly--like he's seeing it through old, distorted glass.

Garl Glittergold sits alone at the center of the table.  He smiles at Davenport, and lifts a cup in greeting.  Other plates and cups and silverware lay scattered down the long table, as if the room has been abandoned in a hurry.

"Hey, Utirhant," says Garl.  "It's been a while."

Davenport takes a step forward and finds he can't get any closer.  Like that distorted glass is actually there.  "Garl?" he asks, pressing his hands against the barrier.

That's when he sees the black sludge covering the floor of the banquet hall.  It's already up to Garl's knees, and climbing slowly.  But Garl doesn't move from where he is, doesn't try to escape.

"What's going on?" asks Davenport.  "What is this stuff?"  A sick fear twists his gut.  Is this…his fault?  Did he do something to his god by rejecting him?  All those years he didn't pay attention to Garl, was there something he should have been doing to prevent this?

Garl shakes his head.  "It's got nothing to do with you," he says calmly.  The black sludge is up to his waist.  "Or, more to the point, it has everything to do with you.  But it's not your fault."

Davenport tries punching the barrier, but he can't get through.  He doesn't know what that black sludge is, but something in his gut tells him it's bad, very bad.  "Garl," he says, "what should I do?  How can I stop this?"

Garl looks past Davenport, and even though prophecy is not the god's domain, still it seems like his emerald-bright eyes are looking at some distant point in the future.  Then he smiles at Davenport, and winks.  "You'll do fine," he says.  "Just remember what I taught you."

And then Davenport wakes up.            

 

#

 

It’s the morning of the Starblaster’s maiden flight.  The first official extraplanar mission of the newly-renamed IPRE.  Davenport mechanically goes through the final system checks, barely tasting his coffee and the banana bread he forces himself to nibble on so at least he has something in his stomach.  The dream of Garl’s flooded banquet hall follows him around, a weight in his heart he can’t shake.  But the entire crew is nervous (though half of them pretend otherwise) so nobody notices.

A crowd of reporters, well-wishers, and the scientifically curious are gathered by the launchpad.  He watches his chronicler, Lucretia, hugging an older couple that he assumes to be her parents.  A cluster of dwarves thump Merle enthusiastically on the back.  Barry Bluejeans stands awkwardly nearby, hands in pockets, speaking with the physics team.  Burnsides and the twins are posing for the cameras like this is a photo shoot for a style and fitness magazine.  Davenport has no idea where Taako got sunglasses that large.

He hears his name called.  He turns to see a substantial group of his family waving from the crowd.  His parents, grandparents, all his siblings and a handful of aunts, uncles and cousins have come to see him off. 

“There’s my boy!” says his mother, kissing him on both cheeks.  “You be safe out there, okay?”

“You think the outer planes have decent mail service?” his father jokes. 

Davenport quashes down his uneasiness and gives them a confident smile.  “I’m afraid the mail trucks tend to go a bit slow in the Plane of Magic,” he says.  “But I’ll be keeping in constant contact with HQ.”

“Aw beans,” says Clocthi.  “I was really hoping for some postcards from the Celestial Plane.”  He spreads his fingers with a grin.  “Greetings from the Golden Hills!  Wish you were here!”

Davenport winces.  “Y-yeah, nothing like that, I’m afraid.  Just a lot of…data.  Maybe some, ah, soil samples.”  In the corner of his eye, he catches Magnus dead-lifting Taako over his head while Taako poses for the cameras.

His mother nudges his father.  “Give him the thing!”

“Oh, right!”  His father reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a small bag of burgundy velvet, tied with a gold-colored cord.  “So, we wanted to get you something as a going-away gift.  Something of home to take with you.  But we were honestly kind of stumped.  So we were mentioning this to Star Ruby Jella, and she says she has the perfect thing.  And she pulls this from the temple treasury and blesses it on behalf of Garl and, well…here you go!”  And he holds out the bag.

Its weight is familiar.  He knows what it is as soon as the bag settles in his hand.  He opens it up, and the golden twenty-sided die rolls into his palm.  He sucks in a hard breath.

“Now, we know you don’t really believe in luck,” he hears his father saying, as if from a long way away.  “But anyone can use a bit of extra luck now and then!”

“Um.  Thank you,” he says automatically, shoving the die back in the bag.  “That was, uh, very—very thoughtful of her.  You.”

His parents beam.

“Jella’s the one who named you Utirhant, right?” asks his father.

“Oh, it had to be her,” says his mother.  “She and the Jewels are the only ones that use that name of yours, and she’s always had a soft spot for you.”

Davenport shoves the bag in his pocket.  “Y-yeah…I, um.  I should go now—"

“Oh, of course!”

“Is it time already?”

“Good luck!”

And then he’s swamped with a dozen hugs and quick good-byes, and he mumbles a quiet ‘I love you’ that only his parents can hear.  When he finally disengages, he speed-walks over to the landing pad and his crew falls in behind him.  Cameras flash as they make their way up the gangplank.  The twins take their sweet time strutting at the rear.  He reaches the deck and hears Lup calling behind him, “Hey Captain!  Wave for the crowd!”   

He turns towards a sea of faces and gives a brief, professional wave.  He glances around at the crowd, half-expecting some stranger to smile and give him a knowing wink the way only Garl does.  But Garl doesn’t appear.

 

#

 

The black sludge is up to Garl's neck.  He floats in it, and watches it climb steadily up the walls of his beloved banquet hall.

Arumdina hangs from one of the ceiling beams above him, her blade embedded deep in the wood where he'd tossed her.  Buying her a few more minutes.

From the edges of the planar system, he feels his emissary split into a hundred different Davenports.  A hundred different chances to get this right. 

And then Davenport is gone.

"Think he'll be okay?" asks Arumdina.  Her voice is faint.

He ponders this riddle.  "No, I don't think he'll be okay," he admits.  "But I have faith that he'll succeed."  He lifts a hand from the sludge and slaps it down on the surface, a decisive if useless strike.  "Bold of this asshole to assume we're gonna lose!  I put my gamepiece on the board long before anyone else knew there was even a game to be played!"

Arumdina laughs dryly.  "Hell of a time to put all your money on a single bet," she says. 

Garl grins, even as black tendrils reach up from the ooze to grab him.  "Now now, my dear Arumdina," he scolds, with the gentle affection that comes from being best friends for uncountable millenia.  "You know long odds always have the biggest payoffs."

And then the ooze swallows him, and he is gone.


	4. Card Table

Merle nudges the door to Davenport's berth with his hip.  "Coming in!" he says cheerfully as he waddles into the dark room.  It's seven cycles in, and he's carrying a small folding table the twins had picked up at the market.

In the dim room, Davenport is just a lump of shadow on the bed.  He grumbles something incoherent into his pillow.

Merle snorts.  "Are you gonna get up and do something, or are you just gonna sit in the dark and be grumpy for the rest of the cycle?"

Another incoherent mumble.  Davenport lifts his head.  "I think, given the circumstances," he growls, "I have the right to be a little grumpy."  His voice is cold.  Merle knows he has to tread lightly.

"Ya know," he says, amiably.  "People are a lot like plants.  I think a little sunlight would do you wonders."  He pulls back the heavy curtains, and this planet's warm golden light streams in through the porthole.

Davenport covers his one remaining eye with his one remaining hand and groans.  Merle sets the table down by the bed and gives his captain a good once-over.  The poor guy had been in the blast range of a bizarre lava creature whose primary defense when threatened was to blow itself up.  Magnus had been killed instantly, and Davenport had lost his left arm, leg, and eye.  And a good portion of what's left of their captain is still covered with the pink splotches of burn wounds that Merle has done his best to heal.

In short, Davenport’s a mess.  And he hates asking for help.  Apparently he's decided it's better to lay in bed and do nothing all day than appear needy in front of his crew.  But all it's done is add to the tension infecting the ship.

"I brought a deck for Yooker," says Merle, setting the cards on the little table.  "Think you're up for a game?  It'll help get your mind off things."  He sets down a bowl of dry rice that Davenport can use to prop the cards up in. 

Davenport shrugs.  "Fine."  The word is harsh, almost petulant.

"You remember where we left off?  With my old mind, I think I've forgotten where we stand with the betting."

Davenport pinches the bridge of his nose.  "Dresser, top drawer.  Black notebook.  Should be a quill in there, too."

Merle crosses the room and opens the dresser just beneath the porthole.  There it is, along with a few other random sundries.  Shells, interesting geodes, a spare compass…and a small bag of burgundy velvet, tied with a golden cord.

His eyes are immediately drawn to it.  He's not sure why, at first.  But as he lets his hand hover over it briefly, he can sense divine power coming from it.  A talisman of some kind?  Odd.  Davenport never seemed like the type to put much stock in such things.

"Hey, what's this?" he asks, lifting the bag so it catches the light.

"Put it back, Merle."  Davenport's voice is almost shockingly hard.  Merle glances over his shoulder and sees the gnome glaring at him.  The fingers of his one hand clutch tightly at the coverlet.

"I was just curious--"

_"Put it back."_

Merle gives him a level gaze.  But this isn't the hill he wants to die on.  "All right, all right."  He puts the bag back and grabs the notebook and quill.  They don't talk about it again.

 

#

 

Davenport wonders, during the first several cycles, what it means to be an emissary of Garl Glittergold when the Garl of every planar system is different.  Occasionally these different Garls will check in on him, brushing past him in a crowd or walking into his dreams for a chat.  They are curious about him; apparently he is still marked as Garl's, even if any given Garl has never seen him before.  They call him Emissary, or Family Jewel, or Joker's Wild, or all sorts of odd and occasionally patronizing pet names. 

He doesn't reach out to any of them on purpose. 

Sometimes he dreams of the Garl from home, being swallowed up by black ooze.  Davenport didn't know what it meant at the time but he learns soon enough.  His Garl Glittergold is inside the Hunger now.  The thought makes him shudder.

_"You'll do fine,"_ he'd said.  Smiling even at the end of all things.  _"Just remember what I taught you."_

Davenport tugs at his hair, uncertain what he's supposed to take from that.  Garl spent years messing with him, and that was supposed to be training for _this?_   This mad flight from world to world, desperate to find the Light of Creation?  Knowing that every time he failed, an entire planar system would be consumed?  Nothing could have prepared him for this.

He leaves the golden die in its bag.  They need whatever resources they can get, but the die's power is too unstable, too unpredictable.  Right now, Davenport needs a power he can rely on.

He can't rely on Garl.

 

#

 

It's a quiet day on the Starblaster.  Davenport sits at the card table across from Merle, who's dealing out the next hands for Yooker.  Davenport looks over his cards, rubbing his chin.

Merle sets down a card.  "Well, skipper?  What's eatin' ya today?"

He looks up from his hand, startled at the break in their usually silent games.  "Pardon?"

The dwarf smiles.  "You got that look on your face, when you're stewin' on something.  So let's hear it."

Davenport hesitates.  He's been stewing on a lot of things, ever since Merle decided to found a church on the fungus-covered world last cycle, and to stay behind with his flock while the rest of the crew fled.  He feels like he should ask Merle--ask him _something_ , but he's not sure where to even start.  _How do I know what a god wants from me?_ he wants to ask.  _Do the gods ever make mistakes?_

_There's a door in my heart, and I think it scares me._

Instead, he asks, "Why Pan?"  He sets down his own card, the Fool arcana.  "Why choose to follow him?"

Merle shrugs.  "Life, I guess."  He sits back, and Davenport recognizes that the dwarf is about to go off on one of his verbal meanderings.  "I mean, I thought I knew Pan, growing up.  You've read my bio, you know about that part."

"The commune.  Of course."

Merle waves his hand as if brushing the commune aside.  "Sure, we all worshipped Pan.  But I didn't really... _get_ him until after I left.  There was a whole world out there that we were ignoring.  So I left, and I thought to go it alone.  Even tried worshipping the god of travellers for a while."  He chuckles, a little ruefully.  He leans forward.  "But you know what I did find, out there in the world?" 

Davenport raises an eyebrow.  "What?"

He sets down the Nine of Cups.  "Life," he says.  "I found life.  A whole world brimming with it!  There's no place in the world where life doesn't try to make its way.  Now you can't tell me that isn't a miracle."

Davenport chews on this.  "So you chose Pan because his domain is everywhere?"

Merle laughs.  "I came back to Pan because I finally got his shtick!  Life is--is uncontainable, it takes joy in the very act of being!  You can't just hide yourself away in a commune and ignore the joyful mess of life and claim to get Pan."  He snorts.

Davenport looks over his cards, uncertain which move to make next. 

Merle leans forward, elbows on the table, a sly smile in his beard.  "You have the look of a man who's still searching," he says.  "Can I interest you in the good word of Pan?"

He sets down his card, the Hanged Man inverted, and takes the hand with a triumphant grin.  "Thanks, Merle, but I don't think Pan is exactly my type."

"So what is your type?"

He raises an eyebrow.  He is about to say, "Not the Joker," but he clamps his jaw shut.  "I have faith in myself," he says stiffly.

Merle nods.  "That's a good place to start."

 

#

 

He rolls the die once.  Only once.  Barry is dead, and Davenport is in his berth, on his second glass of wine, trying to get the image of the scientist's broken body out of his head. 

He should've done something different.  He's the _captain_ , damn it.  He runs through all the decisions he's made that day, trying to find the path he should have taken instead.  A path where Barry didn't get crushed by a fucking rock monster.

They buried him this afternoon.  And now the remaining crew is back on the ship and everyone's quiet and sullen and Davenport can't help but feel like this is all his fault.  Not just Barry, but everything.  This whole gods-damned never-ending retreat is his fault.

He doesn't even know why he pulls the die out of its bag.  It's not like the thing has ever done him any good.  He grits his teeth and flings it to the floor.

As it clatters to a stop, he realizes he probably shouldn't have done that.

It lands on a ten.  He casts back in his memory, trying to remember if he's rolled a ten before.  The notebook where he'd once tried to enumerate the outcomes is long gone, stuffed in a box in a closet that's now inside the Hunger.

Pinprick claws pierce the thin fabric of his white dress shirt.  He leaps to his feet with a cry as _something_ starts scrambling around inside his jacket.  He tears it open and reaches inside, and his hand closes on a warm, furry body.  He pulls it out.

A squirrel chitters at him, its tail twitching.

Davenport's eyes narrow.  It figures.

He nearly runs into Lucretia as he speedwalks down the hallway.  Both her pale eyebrows lift at the sight of the squirrel trying to squirm out of his hands.  "Oh good, Lucretia," he says briskly, before she can ask, "could you please open the port hatch for me?  I need to get this little fellow outside."

"Oh!  Um, of course, captain."  She hurries ahead and hits a button on the wall.  The hatch door slides open and a set of stairs drops down with a faint hum of motors.  The cool night air washes over him.

Lucretia follows as he carries the squirrel away from the ship and releases it.  It scurries off into the woods.  They watch in silence for a moment.

"How do you think it got into the ship, captain?" she asks, finally breaking the quiet.

Davenport clears his throat.  "Not sure, actually," he says, grateful that she can't see his cheeks turning red in the dark.  "Maybe someone, um, left a window open."

They fall silent again, but it's an awkward silence.  The crude post that marks Barry's grave is visible near the edge of the woods, faintly gray in the moonlight.

"Captain?"

"Hm?"

Lucretia hesitates.  "Um, I was about to put on a pot of tea and, um, do some painting.  Would you, um, care to join me?  I just…I think I don't want to be alone right now."  Her words are strained.

He opens his mouth to speak, and realizes how tight his own throat is.  "Y-yeah," he says.  "Yes, of course.  I'd be happy to join you."  It'd be better than sitting in his berth, drinking wine and endlessly spinning his mental wheels.

Lucretia smiles.

 

#

 

At the IPRE, Davenport had built a team for a two-month exploratory mission.  He picked a bunch of oddballs because they worked well together, because he believed they could get the job done and then some. 

But what the Mission becomes requires so much more.  And so they must become so much more.  Davenport shapes this oddball team into a unit:  partnering them for different tasks so they all get used to each other, building workarounds to bypass or fix points of tension.  Encouraging redundancies in their skill sets so critical functions aren't lost when teammates are out on mission or dead.

He builds them up into something greater than the sum of their parts.  But they are building him, too, pulling him out past his carefully-defended walls.  He's drawn into their dances, invited to their impromptu parties and family game nights, asked to help with experiments and personal projects.  He finds himself changing despite himself, until he's shaped his heart around them and accepted them as his.  Every crew member's heart fits smoothly into another.  Every bizarre quirk flowers through their family in strange and unexpected beauty. 

They fly together as the worlds shift around them.

 

#

 

"So was it, like, a lightbulb going off?"  Davenport sets down his next card on the table.  It's a new card table, simple but sturdy, just the right height for a dwarf and a gnome.  "Just a moment when you realized Pan was the one?"

Merle raises a thick eyebrow.  He grins.  "Sure, Dav.  It was amazing, let me tell ya!  The clouds parted and sunlight shone down on me, and the birds all sang, and everything just made sense."

Davenport says "Oh," very quietly.  Merle chuckles, and he realizes the dwarf is pulling his tail.  He throws down his hand in disgust.  "You're so full of bullshit!" he says.

Merle's chuckles turn into boisterous laughter.  Davenport rubs his hand down his face.  Why did he hire this guy again?

The cleric settles back in his chair, wiping a tear from his eye with one callused finger.  "Naw, it was nothin' like that.  I've been a cleric for decades and never once has Pan parted the heavens for little ol' me."

"Then how did you know?"

He shrugs.  "It was a slow thing, really.  I just wandered around till I came to the answer.  Faith is like that, really.  Sometimes you're wandering around looking for the path, and slowly ya come to realize you've already worked your way to the solution, you've already been walkin' the path."

Davenport chews his lip.  "How do you know if it's the right path?"

Merle jabs a finger in his direction.  "And _that_ is what faith is all about."

He sighs.  Not a very helpful answer.

They fall silent again, finishing out the round.  Merle wins.  He deals the next hand, and Davenport picks up his new cards, but he can't focus on them.  Words are pushing up through his throat, and half of him wants to clamp down on them and the other half of him wants to speak, wants to get them out into the open so they're no longer digging at the inside of his chest. 

"Merle?"

The dwarf looks up from his hand.  "Yeah, Dav?"

"What if…what if you don't have a choice which path you're set on?"

"What, you mean like being born in a commune?"

Not exactly, but he leaps on it.  "Yeah.  Like, say you're born in a commune and—and the church elders just…assign you a role.  And you never have the—the opportunity to leave.  There's no other options for you."  He runs his fingers through his hair.  He is once again an awkward teenager standing on the dais, and everyone is looking at him.

If Merle thinks this an odd question, he doesn't say so.  "True faith is always a choice," he says.  "I might've come back to Pan but the choice was mine to make.  So I suppose, this…hypothetical person wouldn't have faith, they'd have obedience."

Davenport nods.  "R-right…"

"Hypothetically speaking, of course."

"Of course."

 

#

 

Magnus sighs.  "They look so _sad_ ," he says, tugging on the withered leaf of a tomato vine.  "How can they look so sad and not even have faces?"

Barry scratches the back of his head.  "Yeah, we really—we really boned this one."

"Ugh, what are you, Merle now?" Lup asks, jabbing Barry with an elbow.  The scientist turns as red as the tomatoes.

Davenport stands up from his crouch and claps soil from his hands.  "Well, I am officially out of my depth," he says.  He doesn't know a thing about gardening, let alone how to help a flagging vegetable garden regain vitality.  But the poor village that offered them hospitality this cycle needed a supplement to their food stores, so they'd promised a vegetable garden, and that was what they were going to deliver.

"Got him!" says Taako, arriving with Merle.  He sets the dwarf down with a grunt at the edge of the garden plot.  "Okay, short stack, do your thing.  Summon Pan or whatever.  And I swear, if you sweet-talk our vegetable garden, I will shave your beard while you sleep."

Merle rolls his eyes.  "Okay, okay!  Don't need to be such a grump about it."  He extends his hands over the edge of the garden.  "Oh loving Pan, bring life and health to this, our humble garden, that we your children may be nourished by its fruits."

"And veggies," adds Lup.

"And veggies," Merle echoes.

"Mostly veggies, really," says Barry.  "Hardly any fruits at all."

Magnus scratches his head.  "Wait, aren't they all veggies?"

"Technically the tomatoes are fruits," says Lucretia.

"What?  No way!"

Further commentary is cut off as the vegetables nearest them put out fresh new growth.  The underripe, withering tomatoes grow full and red.

"Woop woop!"  Lup pumps her fist.  "Mission accomplished, old man!"

Davenport clears his throat.  "While it's good that the garden is healing, we can't rely on Merle praying over it all the time.  We should change up our care routine to make sure it doesn't get this bad again.  Merle, what do you suggest?"

The cleric is humming over the same tomato plant Magnus had been examining earlier.  "Well, more frequent watering, for one thing.  The air here is pretty dry, so they'll need a little more moisture than what you all have been givin' them.  I can also take some soil samples, see if there's some nutrient deficiencies."

"Excellent.  Magnus, Barry, why don't you two fetch some more water from the well?  Maybe we can plan an irrigation system, as well.  Make a more efficient use of the water we have.  Lucretia, could you take inventory of what plants we have at the moment, and what their current status is?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Thank you.  Lup, Taako—"

"We've already got a mission, Cap," says Lup, pulling one of the now-ripe tomatoes off the vine.  "We're gonna make a killer tomato sauce for tonight's dinner."

He smiles.  "All right, sounds like a plan.  _After_ you harvest some for the village." 

Taako grimaces.  "I'm afraid it's not a good time for harvesting, Cap.  You see, the sun is very hot, and I have a fragile constitution, being but a simple wizard.  I fear that if I attempt to harvest more, uh, fruits than is necessary to feed our humble crew right now, I may be susceptible to sunstroke.  And mono."  He plucks a tomato from the vine, and flings the back of his hand against his forehead.  "Oh, it's so exhausting!  Oh, the labor!"

"It's okay, friend Taako!" Magnus calls.  "I can harvest for you, and take the tomatoes into town when I go to the well for water."

"Oh, thank you, friend Magnus!  Truly, you are a true friend."

Davenport rolls his eyes.  He'll need to talk to Taako later about shirking his work and taking advantage of Magnus's credulity.  But for now, he watches his crew scatter on their various missions, and satisfaction settles in his chest like a contented cat.

Merle stands by the edge of the garden, muttering another prayer.  Davenport turns to leave him to his work, when the dwarf says suddenly, “You wanna say a prayer too?”

He pauses.  "I'm not a cleric, Merle.  I don't have anything for, uh…this."  He gestures at the garden.

Merle smiles.  "Never hurts to throw an extra prayer in.  Never know who's listening."

He regards his friend for a long moment.  Times like these, he wonders how much Merle suspects about his…unique spiritual situation, or how much of these pointed questions are just the cleric trying to tease more personal information out of him.  

He casts back in his memory.  The prayers he grew up with in the temple are not quite the same as the Pannite prayers that Merle does.  Or even like the ritualized prayers he's seen in other cultures, at other temples.  Garl would roll his eyes at such formalized exhortations.  Praying, to his people, is a very different sort of activity.

“Well, I have just one, really," he says slowly, rubbing the back of his head.  "And it’s not…I mean, it’s a very gnomish prayer—”

Merle raises an eyebrow.  “Don’t give me the background, just let ‘er rip!"

Davenport clears his throat, and tells him.

Merle laughs.

“I know,” says Davenport, fixing his eyes on the vegetable garden, trying to ignore the burning in his cheeks.  “It’s stupid, I—”

“No, it was a good prayer!  It lifted my spirits!"  Merle claps him on the shoulder.  "And that’s the point.  Honestly, I think you should share it with the rest of the crew.”

Davenport looks away from his bright, dancing eyes.  “Oh, I couldn’t do that," he says quickly.  "I…it’s not…"  He bites his lip.  "You think I should?  Like, today?”

Merle shrugs.  “You don’t have to.  But I think it could mean a lot to them.  Just…when the time is right.  When you think they need to hear it.”

“When will that be?”

“I think you’ll know.”

 

#

 

The bond engine stitches him back into place at the wheel.  It's cycle 43, and a new planar system opens up before them.  One more opportunity to get things right.

The door in his heart is kicked open, and a wave of divine fury rolls over him.  He gasps, clutching the wheel.  Before he can turn to his crew, before he can say anything, the world splits open.  The Starblaster's walls and windows unfold and re-align and slide around each other like he's in the middle of a vast puzzle-box, and when they finally settle, he's standing in a banquet hall.

It is not like the banquet hall he's seen before.  The walls are decorated with weapons of war, the wood paneling is now stone, and the delicate gold chandelier is an iron wheel lined with smokey candles.

Garl sits at the center of the table, in full armor, Arumdina's golden head gleaming over his shoulder.  The other Lords of the Golden Hills, the full gnome pantheon, are likewise armored.  Far from the raucous conversation and loud laughter he's heard in this hall before, there is dread silence as they all regard him.

Garl Glittergold's face is grim beneath a horned helmet.  "You are Utirhant," he says, and there is no trace of joyful welcome or even curiosity in his voice. 

Davenport stiffens beneath his gaze.  Garl's anger makes his skin shiver with goosebumps.  His heart pounds like a rabbit beneath his ribcage.  He clears his throat, trying to maintain a semblance of dignity.  "Yes, I am," he says. 

"Are you armed?"

"Um…yes?"

Garl nods.  He slides the helm's faceplate down and leaps onto the table, drawing Arumdina as he moves.  "Then defend yourself!" he roars, and lunges at Davenport.

Davenport stumbles back, and barely sidesteps as Arumdina slices the air beside him.  He throws up his hands, getting as much space as he can between him and this angry god.  "Wait, what's going on?" he says.  "I'm not going to fight you!"

Garl's face is hidden behind the faceplate, but he can feel the glare leveled at him.  Garl points his axe at Davenport.  "Then you will die!" he booms.  And he flings the axe straight towards him.

He ducks to the side.  Arumdina lodges herself in the wall beside him, her blade digging deep into the stone.  "Arumdina, help me out!" he says.  "What's going on?  Why is he acting like this?"

Arumdina is silent.

She flies back out of the wall, and Garl catches her easily.  Davenport bolts behind a stone pillar. 

"Fight, you coward," Garl growls, appearing instantly in front of him.  "Or are you hoping to run around like a witless mouse until you can find a hole you can crawl into?"

Davenport swings wildly.  His fist passes through Garl's head.  He staggers forward, thrown off-balance as the illusion flickers out.

He catches himself, twists, flings a knife in the direction of where Garl had been a moment before.  The dagger rings against a steel buckler banded in gold.  Garl deflects it easily, sending it skidding along the floor.

"Not good enough, Utirhant," he says. 

Shit.  He doesn't have that many knives.  Three more, tops.  The rest of his supply is back on the ship.  It was only luck that he happened to have a few on him at the reset point.

Well, he is in a banquet hall.  He throws another dagger at Garl's feet, hoping to slow him more than do any damage, and runs for the table.  The other Lords of the Golden Hills have been watching this play out mostly in silence, but they react with shouts of surprise as he dives behind the banquet table.  Arumdina whirls overhead, bisecting a roast duck as well as the silver platter and the wood beneath that.  The butcher’s cleaver on the platter flips past Davenport, nearly nicking his ear before hitting the wall behind him and clattering to the floor.  In the moment it takes for Garl to recall her, Davenport pokes his head up, and grabs a handful of serving knives and a shallow iron bowl.

The gnome in the chair next to him looks down at him around a prodigious nose. 

"I just need to borrow these for just a minute, by your leave, Lord Steelskin," Davenport says quickly.  "By the way, I love your work.  When it's, uh…not being used to try to kill me."

Flandal Steelskin, the Master of Metal and forger of Arumdina, raises both bushy eyebrows.  “Gold needs to be tested in fire before it’s of any use,” he says.

He files away the comment for later consideration, ducking down behind the table and assessing his replenished stock.  Steak knives aren’t exactly balanced for throwing but he’s made do with worse.  He slips his arm through the iron bowl’s handles and rests it on the outside of his arm like a buckler.  He takes a deep breath, and stands.

Arumdina whirls straight at him.  He angles the bowl.  Her golden blade nicks the bottom of the iron but the solid curve of it is enough to deflect her path away from him.  And that’s all he needs.  He launches a flurry of knives at Garl before the god can recall his weapon.

Garl dances back, knocking aside the knives with his buckler on one arm and a steel greave on the other.  Arumdina snaps back to his hand.  “Are you going to hide behind the banquet table all night?” he asks.

“If you’re so eager for a fight,” says Davenport, “come and get me!”

Garl pulls Arumdina back for another throw.  “As you say!” 

The other Lords of the Golden Hills scramble from their chairs, leaving Davenport alone behind the table.  Arumdina flies towards him.  He ducks.

He hears a massive crack as the whole table in front of him is sliced in two.  Arumdina embeds herself in the iron bowl, the force of her strike throwing him back on his rear end.  Her blade is caught in the iron, a hair’s breadth from his sleeve.

The table’s two halves fall back, forming an open triangle.  He sits exposed in the middle as platters, utensils and goblets clatter to the floor around him.   

He’s yanked forward as Arumdina is dislodged from the iron bowl and sails back to Garl.  The sliced bowl falls from his arm, useless.

Garl strides forward, readying Arumdina for another strike.  Davenport scrambles up into a crouch and flings another round of utensils at the angry god.

Garl knocks them aside a second time.  But as they clatter to the floor around him, he pauses.  “Teaspoons?” he scoffs.  “That’s your move?”

Davenport drops to his knees.  “No,” he says.

The chandelier comes crashing down on top of Garl.

“ _That_ was my move.”  Davenport sits back, sucking deep breaths into his aching lungs, willing his heart to stop jackhammering at his ribs.  He stares at the cloud of dust and candlesmoke in the middle of the banquet hall.  He’s still not sure what just happened. 

The dust cloud settles.  The wreckage of twisted iron shifts, and is shoved aside as Garl climbs to his feet.  He crosses the banquet hall, perfectly calm, axe in hand.

Of course.  There’s no way an iron chandelier could stop or even slow a god.  Davenport resigns himself to however this is going to end.  If the worst happens, he’ll just reset at the next cycle.

Garl pulls off his helmet.  And he smiles.  "My Utirhant!” he says, opening his arms wide.  “Well done!"  And he sweeps Davenport up into a hug.

Davenport stiffens in the unexpected embrace.  “Um…what?”

“Not bad, kid,” says Arumdina.  “Cutting the chandelier’s rope with a butcher knife while we were distracted by the spoons?  That was damn clever.”

Garl laughs.  He lets Davenport go and grips him by the shoulders, taking a good long look at him.  “You may be exactly what I need," he says, serious once again.  "An unexpected move to break the stalemate."  He waves a hand, and the banquet table fits itself back together, platters and utensils and goblets returned to their places as if nothing happened.  "Come, sit.  I will explain all.  I apologize for the dramatic ruse, but I needed to be certain of you.  And I couldn't just take my word for it."

Davenport blinks.  "Pardon?"

Garl cocks one eyebrow.  He reaches behind Davenport's ear and pulls out a tiny, rolled-up scroll, like a street magician doing sleight of hand for a child.  He unrolls the strip of paper and reads.  "Dear Garl:  This one might come in handy.  But don't take my word for it!  Sincerely, Garl." 

His jaw drops open.  That's-- _what?_   How many of the previous cycles' Garls have been playing Fantasy Telephone through him?

"I see by the look on your face that you have quite a story to tell," says Garl.  "I want to hear all about it."  He leads Davenport to the banquet table, where an extra seat has been placed next to Garl's.  "But right now, we have very weighty matters to discuss."

"I--yeah."  He rubs the back of his head, still reeling from everything that's happened.  He sits down, and doesn't protest as the various serving utensils carve him some roast fowl and scoop rosemary potatoes onto his plate. 

"You see, Utirhant," says Garl, frowning, "we are at war.  Our people are dwindling and I fear the worst if the course of the war is not turned soon.  You…have come from outside the planes, have you not?  That is all I understand of your sudden appearance."

Davenport nods.  "It's a long story, but yes.  I come from a completely different planar system."

"Then buckle up," says Arumdina, "because you're in for a ride."

Garl waves a hand, and images begin to float in the air above the table.  And he tells a story of war.  Kobolds and gerblins uniting their armies to devastate gnomish communities.  Forest settlements burned to the ground, warrens hollowed out and caved in.  Survivors enslaved and forced to work in the kobold mines.  Most of the remaining free gnomes retreating to the underground city of Taranthil, where they strain under the weight of a year-long seige.

Davenport swallows at the sight of a burning village eerily similar to the one where he grew up.  He grips the arms of his chair, fingernails digging into the wood.

The other Lords of the Golden Hills are silent during all of this, their faces grim.

"So far," says Garl, "we have been unable to break out of the seige."  He looks down at Davenport as the last image flickers out in a shower of golden glitter.  "That is where you come in."

Davenport leans back in his chair, his plate forgotten.  "You're…you're serious," he says faintly.  "This whole…it's not a joke, is it?"

Garl frowns.  "I do not joke about things such as these, Utirhant."

He brushes his hair out of his eyes.  "Forgive me, Garl.  I just…I've met many Garls, and all of them have been…"  He chooses his words carefully.  "…Very different from you.  You're Garl the Joker, known for your pranks.  We tell jokes and throw dance parties in your temple!  Things such as war councils, the guidance of warriors…they'd fall under Gaerdal Ironhand's domain."  He glances down the table, and there sits the Lord in question, stern-faced and armored.

Garl strokes his brilliant copper mustache.  "I am still those things you speak of," he says.  "I am still the Joker.  I long to hear the laughter of my people once more.  But Utirhant, I am also the First of the Lords of the Golden Hills.  I am the Watchful Protector of gnomekind.  And when there is no other choice, I must take up the grim duty of defending my people."  His eyes narrow, and he regards Davenport thoughtfully.  "My Utirhant, did you not know that about me?"

He bites his lip.  He looks away from Garl's hard gaze as shame squirms in his gut.  "No," he says.  "I guess I didn't."

He hears Garl take a deep breath and let it out slowly.  He can't help but feel like a teenager again, young and uncertain and somehow failing tests he doesn't even know how to prepare for.  When did his warren ever talk of war?  When had they ever had to look to Garl to defend them from a massive military threat?

"Be that as it may," says Garl, "you're here now.  And I have a feeling you have exactly the skills my people need to lead them out of these dark times.  Will you help me, Utirhant?  Will you go to them as my emissary, and break this seige?"

He hesitates.  He doesn't know where his crew is or how they're reacting to his sudden disappearance.  Have they entered the Prime Material Plane yet?  Have they spotted the Light?  His heart bleeds for the gnomes of this world, but does he have any right to promise his service to them when a far greater responsibility has been laid on his shoulders?

Gaerdal Ironhand grunts.  "Why is this something he must pause to consider, Garl?" he says, his voice like a hammer coming down.  "If his heart is truly courageous, there is only one right answer!  Or does he not know, in the depths of his ignorance, what war is?"

Garl frowns.  "Oh, he knows."

Davenport swallows his pride.  "Forgive me my hesitation, Lords.  I want to help.  I--I _will_ help, as much as I am able.  But--shit, this is going to sound terrible, and I apologize."  He gets to his feet.  "But there is a bigger problem that our people need to worry about.  Within two days of my arrival in this planar system, the Light of Creation will follow.  And the moment it arrives, it will start a countdown clock of one year until the end of the world.  If my team is able to retrieve the Light and escape the system at years' end, the world will be damaged but it can recover.  If we cannot find and retrieve the Light, this planar system and every being in it, from the tiniest blade of grass to the most powerful of the gods, will be consumed."

The table erupts around him as every one of the Lords begins talking at once.  All except Garl, who stares at Davenport with an unreadable expression.

Gaerdal slams his fist on the table, startling the others into silence.  "Garl, my lord," he says, "this has gone on long enough!  Either send this so-called emissary away or destroy him.  If he lies, he is repaying your earnest command with a ludicrous joke.  If he tells the truth, he is no emissary of yours but a harbinger of the Apocalypse!"  He draws his warhammer.  "Either way, I would be more than happy to end him for you."

"Well, that seems a bit harsh," Flandal remarks.

And a second wave of debate rises around the table as the Lords begin to argue, much to his horror, over whether Davenport should be killed for bringing the apocalypse.  But Garl continues to regard him, and Davenport cannot turn away from his gaze. 

_"Enough!"_ Arumdina shouts.  "It doesn't matter what any of you think of him!  The Emissary has guest-right in our hall, under Garl's personal aegis.  Which means that if any of you sorry lot even harms a single hair on his head, I will personally cut you in _twain_."

Silence falls in the banquet hall.  Davenport is pinned under Garl's gaze.

"Show me," says Garl, and taps him on the forehead.

The Hunger fills the room.  It pools in the ceiling exactly as Davenport remembers it, a churning storm of black glittering with muted colors.  His heart pounds in his chest and he has to remind himself it's just an illusion, though greater than any illusion he's ever created on his own.  The room's stone columns turn to columns of tar, and shadow-enemies pour forth, snarling and screaming, eyes alight with malice.

Every fiber of his being wants to step back, to run, to lift his arms to defend himself, but he is held in place by Garl's power.  The wave of enemies bears down on them.  In the corner of his awareness, he sees the other Lords cry out, readying weapons, drawing forth shields and bucklers.

Garl releases him, and the Hunger vanishes.  He sags into his seat, gasping. 

Garl turns to the rest of the pantheon.  "Well?" he asks, voice ringing.  "Are there any more questions?  Or do we get down to business?”

 

#

 

The agreement is straightforward.  Davenport will help his people break free of their stalemate, using whatever skills and resources he and his team can provide.  Once the gnomes are free again, they will assist with the search for the Light of Creation.

The banquet is ended, and Garl stands by one of its tall mullioned windows, looking down on what appears to be an endless rolling forest tinged gold in the setting sun.  Davenport stands beside him, eager to get back to his ship.

“The Garl from your home,” he says.  “Did he gift you any weapons?”

Davenport hesitates.  “Not a weapon, no.”

Garl raises an eyebrow.  He reaches behind Davenport’s ear and withdraws the golden die.  He weighs it in his palm.  “You have not touched this in a very long time,” he says.

Davenport clears his throat.  “It’s…unpredictable,” he says carefully.  “Given the stakes my team is facing, it seems, ah, foolhardy to depend on it.”

Garl regards him for a long moment.  Davenport squirms under that hard, thoughtful gaze.  It feels like his soul is being examined under a microscope.

“You’re afraid of this power,” says Garl.

Davenport says nothing.

“You are a man of order,” he continues.  “Or, you aspire to be.  Order protects, and keeps safe.  Order maintains control.  But nothing grows in sterile soil.”  He sets the die in Davenport’s hand, and closes his fingers over it.  “Chaos is the power to break and to bloom.  It ends a stalemate.  It changes the game.”

He runs a thumb over the warm golden surface, and slips it in his pocket.  “I’ll…bear that in mind.”

Garl's expression softens.  “Do not be afraid of it, my Utirhant.  This, too, is a part of you.  Now go, and change the game.”  He snaps his fingers. 

And then the banquet hall unfolds and re-aligns, the world a spinning puzzle-box once more.  The floor drops out beneath him and he falls, landing hard on a threadbare carpet.  The room he's in is dark and cavernous and musty.  He's not on the ship.

He looks up.  He's on a circular dais in an underground temple.  Rows of empty, concentric pews radiate out into the darkness. 

He hears footsteps.  He raises an arm, blinking as a lantern throws a beam of golden light in his direction.  A Jewel stands at the edge of the dais, his robes identifying him as a Star Sapphire.  A group of about a dozen other gnomes, some Jewels and some not, stand behind him. 

Davenport opens his mouth to ask for a Stone of Farspeech, his first thought to contact his crew.  But the words die in his throat at the sight of these gnomes, whose faces are painfully thin and whose clothes are threadbare.  A few of them bear battle scars.  One hard-faced girl who can't be more than fifteen is missing an arm.  They all stare at him with wary, haunted eyes.

The Star Sapphire takes another step closer.  "Are you Garl's Utirhant?" he asks.

Davenport swallows his heart and climbs to his feet.  "Yes," he says, "I am."

 

#

 

He pulls out the die many times during that long, brutal year.  Its weight in his hand is an odd comfort.  He only rolls it once, though. 

He is with a platoon of gnome warriors trying to cut through the kobolds' supply train.  One of their main stores is in the next cavern over.  But there's a pair of lookouts posted on a ledge, and they'll raise the alarm the moment Davenport shows his face.  Like all the scouts and lookouts of the kobold army, they've likely been given amulets of True Seeing, so he can't depend on an illusion.

It's a stalemate.  They're not moving, and he can't move.

He takes a deep breath, his fingers running over the die's hard surface.  He sets down his jacket on the cavern floor to muffle the noise.  Time to change the game.

He rolls the die.  It lands on a five.

His nose begins to itch.  He covers his mouth, but it's too late to hold back his sneeze.  A pair of doves launches up into the tunnel, wings flapping loudly.  Around the corner, he hears the kobolds' exclamations of surprise.

But they don't raise an alarm.  They're growling back and forth at each other, their voices pitched in confusion.  Davenport hazards a peek around the corner.  They're not even looking in his direction.  They're staring at the doves, scratching their heads.

He lets fly two knives, hitting them in the necks.  The kobolds go down with soft grunts.

He scoops up his jacket and the die, and waves his scout to take point on the next leg.  He follows, glancing up at the doves.  The banner between them reads "Congrats On Your Retirement!"

His party progresses deeper into the cave, and the doves dissolve into golden glitter behind them.

 

#

 

By the end of the cycle, the kobold siege is broken and their army is routed.  The Light is recovered.  There is little time to help the gnomes rebuild before the Hunger arrives, but he helps them prepare as best he can. 

He is harder now.  He feels older, his years wearing on him in a way they haven't before.  He has been to war.  He is no longer fucking around.

The crew holds the usual party they always do when a long-missing crew member is returned to them.  Even though he's been in contact via Stone of Farspeech for a while now, it's still a nice homecoming.  He's happy to see them all again, to be back on the Starblaster with the Light in tow.  He eats the twins' dinner and listens to their accounts of the past year.  He is proud of how they've managed without him.

He tells them he was summoned because the gnomes of this world needed his help.  He does not say who summoned him. 

(He is so used to keeping Garl locked away from them that he doesn't know how to bring it up now.  It would feel too much like admitting to a lie.  And they might ask questions he isn't ready to answer.)

The cycles continue, as they always do.  He periodically walks the ship to check on the crew, same as before.  Making sure Barry remembers to eat, Lucretia remembers to sleep, Taako isn't goading Magnus into some stupid stunt.  But now, when he does so, he thinks of Garl walking the streets of Taranthil, watching over his family.


	5. Garden

Davenport shoves himself to his knees.  The room is full of smoke, and half the ceiling has caved in under the monster's onslaught.  But now it's eerily quiet.  "Taako, Lup?" he calls.  "You there?  Lucretia?"

He hears a soft inhalation of breath somewhere off to his left, followed by a cough.  "H-here, captain."  Lucretia's voice is high and thin.

"Can you move?  Can you see the others?  We need to leave before that thing comes back."

There's a pause, and a soft sob.  "They're gone, captain," she squeaks.  "It--it killed them both!  Taako's head--oh gods--"

"Don't focus on that, Lucretia," he says through gritted teeth.  "Can you move?"

She's crying now. 

"Lucretia?"

"I--I can't do this anymore," she sobs.  "I'm sorry, I can't, I just can't…"

Davenport closes his eyes, tries to steady himself.  "Please, Lucretia.  You have to try."

"I can't!  I just…Just leave me, okay?  I'm not strong enough for this.  I'm not brave.  I'm…I'm just a _writer_ …"

He presses one hand against his bruised ribs.  He can hear his younger self echoing in her voice.  Crying into the seat of the Streetslicer, insisting that all he wants--all he's capable of--is building machines.  But both of them have been dealt a different hand.

"Lucretia," he says.  "Bravery isn't something you are or you aren't.  Bravery is a choice you can make." 

She is silent.  Her sobs have stopped.

"Lucretia, _can you move?"_

Another pause.  "Yes," she says.  Her voice is still hoarse, but slightly firmer.  She sniffles.

"Then you can choose to move.  You can choose to put one foot in front of the other.  And then you can make that choice again.  Can you do that for me?  Can you move towards my location?"

He hears the clatter of debris, the slide of fabric across the floor.  She emerges from the haze, her robes torn, her face smudged with soot.  A shallow cut on her forehead is bleeding freely, but the wound is more bloody than it is serious.

He nods, and takes her hand.  _Oh Lucretia,_ he thinks, _you are capable of so much more than you realize._

Together they crawl from the smoldering wreckage.

 

#

 

They lose that world.  And the next world.  And the next. 

Half the crew can’t sleep at night.  Sometimes he collapses into the group slumber piles in the common room, but just as likely he will fall asleep in his chair at the helm, fingers gripping the wheel so tightly that they ache.

He dreams of the Hunger swallowing billions of lives with every failure.  He dreams of his crew, their bodies broken or torn apart.  He dreams of dozens of Garls, their banquet halls flooding with black ooze while all he can do is run.

 

#

 

"Hey Merle?"

"Yeah?"

Davenport rubs his thumb along the edge of the Heirophant card.  "Is it…strange to you, dealing with a different Pan every cycle?"

Merle looks up from his hand of cards.  It's early in cycle 58--and gearing up to be a nice, quiet year in a mostly-pastoral world--and they're playing Yooker to pass the time.  Taako and Magnus are out on a grocery run to the nearest village, Lucretia is helping Barry compile some notes from last cycle, and Lup is lounging like a cat on the common room couch, stretching out into the warm golden sun.

The dwarf rubs one hand through his beard.  "It was, at first.  Gotten used to it by now, to be honest."  He shrugs.  "I mean, as long as the healing still works, that's the important part, right?"

Davenport frowns.  He knows Merle is saying this because it's what the dwarf thinks he wants to hear.  What's useful, what contributes to The Mission.  Merle isn't necessarily wrong in his assumption, but right now it's so far from what Davenport wants to know.  

"Well…I mean, technically speaking, that's the most practically useful component of your relationship to Pan," he says.  "But wouldn't the spiritual aspect be the most important?  Does dealing with different Pans, um…"  He struggles to find the right words.  "Strain your faith?"

Merle laughs.  "Hah!  I never thought I'd see the day when you're the one arguing for the importance of the spiritual side of things."

The comment stings more than Davenport expects it to.  It must've shown in his face, because Merle's expression softens.  He sets down his cards and steeples his fingers.  "Well," he says, "I shouldn't be too surprised.  Sometimes I think you're a more spiritual man than you care to admit."  He clears his throat.  "Honestly, Pan doesn't change all that much between the planes.  Sure, there are…variations on a theme, depending on the nature of that plane's environment, the nature of the dominant sentient species, that sort of thing.  Remember the world with the giant insects who spoke in weird chittering noises?"

"Um, yeah?"

"Well, their Pan was like them!  A big ol' butterfly covered in leaves and flowers.  But his domain was still the same.  He was still the god who embodied unrestrained nature and the joy of life."  He taps one thick finger on the table to emphasize his words.  "See what I mean?"

"I…think so?"

"So you get these variations, sure, but it doesn't change Pan's essential Pan-ness.  And so that's what I focus on."

He considers this.  There's so much of Garl's lore he never studied, growing up; so much he doesn't know.  But he supposes that in a broader sense, the Garls he's met are more similar than different.  All of them take a paternal, protective role over the Gnomish race; all of them are clever, with a great love of mischief.  All of them are the center of warren life, which has always tended towards the insular and joyfully domestic.

So, in that respect, this cycle's Garl isn't off the mark.  It's just that he's a lot more hands-on than usual.  He checks in with Davenport with all the solicitous concern of a mother hen guarding her chicks, and his nudges come more frequently.  Multiple times a day, in fact.  Which…has been weird.  The peaceful, pastoral world has produced a Garl whose strongest emphasis is on home and community, and as a result, Davenport has been feeling particularly domestic since they've arrived.  He keeps getting ideas for how to decorate the ship's interior to make it homier.  He woke up early one morning and made a full-course waffle and sausage breakfast for the entire crew, which shocked the twins because he's never been a particularly good cook.  He needs to restrain himself to keep from hugging his family every single time they enter the room.

He knows that Garl can never make him do anything he doesn't want to do.  That's not how divine nudges work.  But that only means that these domestic leanings are already a part of him, buried somewhere in his heart.  They are things he already wants.  Home and family and warmth and contact.  Like the strings of a disused fiddle that Garl is tuning and plucking, sending waves of feeling through Davenport's whole body that he's not used to dealing with.

(He keeps his hands behind his back, he keeps a few feet of space between himself and the others, tries not to think of the warm comfort of an embrace and the sound of others’ heartbeats against his cheek.  That sort of casual affection may be typical in a warren, but he can't do that here.  It's not…it's just not _appropriate._   He has to keep reminding himself of that.)

"So what brought this up?" Merle asks.  "Got somethin' on your mind?"

Davenport stares at his hand of cards, but his ability to focus on the game is already lost.  "I want to build a garden," he blurts out.  He can practically feel Garl's smile.

Merle's eyes narrow.  "Who are you, and what've you done with Dav?"

From the couch, Lup cackles.  "Holy shit, Taako's right about you, Cap!  You're nesting like an expectant mother." 

He buries his nose in the hand of cards so Merle doesn't see him turn beet red.  "I…I just thought.  Um."  He takes a deep breath, gathers his thoughts.  He is _Captain Davenport_ , damn it, and he's in charge of how he feels.  "Well, as you know, I'm taking ship-watching duty this cycle, and…certain parties have brought it to my attention that when I'm left on the ship for long periods of time, I get a bit…wound up."

Lup raises her hand.  "Yo!  That was me.  And I can't spend another cycle going out on missions and getting calls on the Stone of Farspeech every five minutes, asking for a check-in.  You need a better hobby, Cap.  Like, _any_ hobby."

He glances over at Lup, and quickly looks away, suppressing a sudden urge to curl up on the couch with her and tell her how proud he is of her.

"So, I thought gardening," he forces himself to continue.  "I mean, you're the chillest person on this ship, Merle.  And you like gardening.  So."  That logic is terrible and he knows it.  He can practically hear Barry's voice reminding him that correlation doesn't equal causation.

But the bad logic doesn't phase Merle.  The dwarf slaps a hand on the table, startling him.  "Okay," he says, "let's do this!"

"What?  Like, right now?"  He's doing this.  He can't believe he's doing this.

"No time like the present," says Merle, getting to his feet.

"O-okay."  Davenport sets aside the cards and stands.  In the back of his head, a familiar inner voice is reminding him that gardening has nothing to do with the Mission, that it's a waste of time and a distraction from his important work.  But that voice is overridden by a far more pressing desire to put down literal and metaphorical roots on this bucolic world.  He clasps his hands tightly behind his back to keep from hugging Merle.  "Let's do this," he says.

            

#

 

Merle lends him a book called _Historical Gardens from Around the World_ which he'd picked up on a previous cycle.  Davenport thumbs through it while drafting blueprints.  He selects a style called "English Cottage Garden," all loose and half-wild and abundant with flowers and herbs.  Vines pour over rough embankments and bushy, sprawling shrubs nearly obscure winding stone paths.  It seems weirdly familiar to him, but he can't quite put his finger on it.

"What's an English?" he asks.

Merle shrugs.  "Dunno.  But based on their cottages, I'd assume some sort of stone giant."

The whole crew gets in on the project, much to his secret delight.  Magnus builds some raised beds and Barry helps Merle with surveying the grounds near the ship.  The twins select some kitchen plants, veggies and herbs mostly, while Lucretia identifies some lovely native flowers and helps Davenport with the shopping for seeds and seedlings in the local villages. 

Soon the garden is complete.  As the rest of the crew packs for their outing--following up on a few new leads on the Light--Davenport surveys the beds of freshly-turned soil and the clumps of seedlings.  It's getting on near twilight, and the air is fresh and sweet.  Merle takes a deep, satisfied breath and stretches.  Several bones crack.

"So," says Davenport.  "What now?"

"Now, you wait."

He frowns.  There's gotta be more to it than that.  "I mean...what else?  Should I be...weeding or something?  Pruning?"

Merle laughs.  "Ain't much to prune at the moment," he says, gesturing towards the beds.

"Well...I mean, there will be.  Eventually.  You tell me what I need to do, Merle.  What if the seeds don't germinate?  How long should I wait for them to start sprouting?  What if insects eat them, or birds?  Should I put up a scarecrow?  What about—"

Merle laughs.  "You got this, Dav!  You'll be fine."  And he takes his shirt off, and sits on the ground.  "It's a lovely spot ya picked."

Dav realizes what he's doing a moment too late.  "Merle, don't—not yet—"

But the dwarf is already mist. 

Davenport sits down hard on the ground.  He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to steady his breathing.  Resigning himself, once again, to the things he can't control.

 

#

 

The next morning, after another surprisingly competent breakfast, he sends the rest of his crew off.  He's tucked little notes in their bags, messages of affection and support that they can stumble across when they least expect it.  He thinks it'll be a nice surprise.

And then they're gone, and he is (almost) alone.

There's little point in restraining his domestic urges after that, so he just gives in.  He works on the garden.  He plays with Fisher.  He uses the twins' cookbooks to actually get a handle on cooking so he doesn't have to rely on divine intervention all the time.  And, for the first time, he contributes to the growing eclectic sprawl of decorations in the common areas. 

After 58 cycles, the ship's interior has become a communal scrapbook of sorts, bearing the design fingerprints of the entire crew.  Davenport's decorative contributions, though, have always been limited to his berth and the helm.  But now, among Lup's vulgar cross-stitch samplers and Lucretia's delicate painted embellishments and Magnus's stick-figure dogs drawn in ballpoint pen on random surfaces, he adds his own stamp.  He finds some ratty old red robes, salvages them for useful fabric, and sews a pair of large throw-pillows for the crew's increasingly-frequent group slumber piles.  And he paints the surface of the card table with an image of this plane's night sky.  He's not good at figure drawing, but he's good at star charts, and this is a thing he can do.  Perhaps he'll ask Lucretia to add some flowers to it when she returns.  A night garden theme would be lovely, and he thinks Merle will appreciate it.

He sings as he works.

One twilight, he's sitting on a lawn chair, enjoying a glass of wine and watching fireflies blink among the towering white star-lavenders and the clumps of flowering cherry-mint.  Garl sits in a chair beside him, wearing a dressing gown, hands clasped contentedly across his stomach.  Both of them are barefoot, toes digging into soft, cool grass.

"Have you been enjoying yourself, Utirhant?" Garl asks, his query so gentle it hardly seems to break the easy silence.

"Hmm, yeah," says Davenport.  "This has been…really nice.  Weird for me, I guess?  But nice."

"I'm glad.  You've really needed a vacation, after the last few cycles."

He glances over at Garl, eyebrows raised.  "Did the last Garl tell you about that?"  It was true, the last few cycles had been difficult and stressful.  He reaches behind his ear, half-expecting to find a tiny scroll hidden there.

Garl smiles.  "He didn't need to.  I could feel it when you first came here.  This mission has been weighing on you, and you needed a vacation.  A chance to relax and re-center yourself."  He spreads his hands, indicating the garden. 

Davenport sits up.  "Wait.  Was this…?"  He narrows his eyes.  "All of the…the pushing, you've just been trying to get me to take a vacation?"

Garl shrugs, his guilty-as-charged smile on his face.  "I hope you don't mind."

The long-muted inner Captain raises his voice in instant protest.  He rises to his feet, staring at the garden as if seeing it for the first time for what it really is:  a sentimental distraction, a useless imitation of the warren gardens he hazily remembers from an increasingly-distant childhood. 

He clenches his fist.  "You…Garl, you realize what will happen if my crew fails to recover the Light, right?"  He gestures to the garden.  "If I get distracted, if I--if I lose my edge, the team could fail, and I--"  He blinks, desperately trying to hold back tears.  He can't lose his home a second time.  "All of this will be gone at year's end!  You know that, right?"

Garl leans forward, and pats Davenport's chair.  Not nudging him to sit, but silently offering it as an option.  "Then let's enjoy the time we have right now," he says.

Davenport runs his fingers through his hair.  "No, no I need to—I should check in on the crew.  Make sure everything's running smoothly."  He takes two steps towards the ship, then pauses.  He doesn't even know what he should be doing, or what would best help.  He just needs to do _something._  

"Utirhant?"

He sighs, and wipes his eyes, and sits. 

"Listen, kid," says Arumdina, from where she leans against Garl's chair.  "If everything needs to be about the Mission, think about it this way:  you, as the captain, are vitally important to the mission's success.  So you need to take care of yourself.  And that includes your mental health!  If you don't learn to bend once in a while, you're going to break."

He glances over at Arumdina.  In this world she's just a walking staff, with a golden tip at the bottom and a golden orb at the top.  He wonders if she was made that way, or if she used to be an axe but her blades were removed at some long-ago point.  It seems rude to ask, though, so he doesn't.

"…Okay, that's a fair point," he admits. 

"So just relax!  Enjoy your garden and trust your crew to do their jobs," she continues.  "And who knows, maybe by the end of the year, someone's gonna win that betting pool of theirs."

"Oh come now, Arumdina!" Garl chides gently.  "That's a secret!  He wasn't supposed to know about it."

He rolls his eyes.  "Okay," he says, taking the obvious bait, "what's this about a secret betting pool my crew is hiding from me?"

"Oh I couldn't spoil the surprise!" says Garl, in that tone that suggests he is more than happy to spoil the surprise.

Davenport holds out his hand, palm up.

"Well, if you must know, they're betting on when you'll finally say the F-word out loud.  You're the only one on the ship who hasn't done so yet."

"What?  I've cursed in front of the crew before.  I must've said every curse word I know in front of them, at some point or another."

Garl chuckles.  "Not that, Utirhant!  The other F-word.  The one you so studiously avoid saying out loud in front of them, as if it's a curse that will sap your strength the moment you utter it."  He gives Davenport a pointed look.

Oh.  He bites his lip.  "You mean…"  He trails off, unable to get the word past his lips.

Garl inclines his head.

He worries the hem of his shirt.  "They…they already know that," he says.  "They already use the word anyway.  I mean…it _is_ how I feel.  At this point."

"But have you told them that?"

He shrinks into his chair. 

"Don't overthink it," says Garl.  "But don't be afraid of letting it flow naturally.  This, too, is a part of you."  He gestures to the garden.  "A fairly lovely part, if I do say so myself."

He stares at the garden.  A night breeze stirs the plants, wafting a scent of floral sweetness and herbs towards him.  He pictures his mother plucking herbs for the kitchen, gathering bundles of mint and basil into her arms; he remembers little Clocthi making geometric designs in the soil with colored pebbles.  But now he also pictures Magnus's grin as he wipes sweat from his brow, and Merle showing him how to bury seeds, and Lup throwing her head back in laughter as Barry minces through the garden, trying not to step on any seedlings.  And it occurs to him that this is the closest he's felt to _home_ in a very long time.  And, Light or no, he will have to leave it behind at the end of the cycle.

"Can a warren be a feeling?" he asks.

Garl strokes his mustache.  It's edging on towards full night, and it's getting harder to see him.  "Hmm, now there's a riddle," he says, his voice fading among the gently peeping insects.  "I'll let you figure that one out."

And then he's gone.

 

#

 

When the crew informs him that they've recovered the Light, he weeps.

He prepares a feast for their return.  He tries to mimic the celebratory dishes of his warren feasts as best he can, and though the result is no culinary masterwork, it passes muster.  He hangs a banner across the common room that reads WELCOME HOME.  He strings extra lights from the ceiling, and decorates with vases of flowers and bundles of drying herbs, until the whole ship smells like a garden. 

He wishes Merle were here to see this.

The crew is used to their returning to brisk nods and brief words of appreciation.  They are not prepared for a party thrown by a Davenport in casual clothes and Taako’s too-big Wine Mom apron, who's pulling a roast fowl out of the oven the moment they walk in the door.

"Wow, Captain," says Lucretia, admiring a vase of freshly-picked purplebells, "you've really outdone yourself!"

"Yeah," says Lup, "you're really leaning into the whole domestic thing, aren't you?"

"I swear it must be something in the air here," says Taako, both eyebrows raised at the spread.  "Did you…did you season that roast with _mint?"_

"Old recipe from home," he explains, setting down the roast in the center of the table and letting Magnus pick him up in an unabashed hug.  "I just, um, wanted to do something nice.  You know…for my family."

There's a pregnant pause.  He grins.  "So…who wins the bet?"

The room explodes into laughter and exclamations and demands for Lucretia to pull out the records.  Barry is declared the winner, much to his pleasant surprise, and collects his winnings:  an eclectic mix of local currency, chore vouchers, and I.O.U.'s for free backrubs.  Lup declares the party officially started, and follows Magnus's hug with one of her own.

"Thanks for waiting," he says to her.  "Sorry it, uh, took me so long."

She grins.  "It was worth the wait."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The Stolen Century portion will only be one chapter," she said foolishly. Anyway, at least Davenport gets a well-deserved break??


	6. Kitchen

Davenport presses himself against the tunnel wall, catching his breath.  He's covered with innumerable scrapes and cuts from when the cave worm had flung him against the cavern's rough stone wall.  He thinks his tail may be broken, too, but he's broken his tail a dozen times over the course of the Mission, and that pain is bearable. 

Gods, when did he get so used to pain?

He pushes that thought aside, takes stock instead.  The creature's first attack had been some sort of breath attack that rusted all his knives _and_ his last-resort derringer to uselessness.  He's fairly certain Taako didn't survive the rockfall; Lup was last seen near where he'd been crushed, scrabbling to try to dig him out.  Magnus was knocked into some sort of crevasse and is currently unaccounted for. 

He peers into the main cavern.  There's Lucretia, looking really bad off near the tail-end of the creature's pale, fleshy body.  She's not moving.  Lup is still near the edge of the rockfall, but she isn't moving, either.  Blood is seeping into her robe, spreading like storm clouds across the fabric.  He scans the rest of the room, and spots Merle on a ledge on the far side of the cavern, also not moving.

Shit. 

He checks his pockets for anything that might be useful.  He has a healing potion; if he can somehow get it to Merle, they might have a shot.

He also finds the golden die.  He's carried it with him since Garl sent him to war in Cycle 43, but he hasn't used it since then.  It still gleams brightly, unaffected by the creature's rust breath.

Merle groans.  The cave worm shifts, nosing its head in his direction.

Davenport tosses the die.

It clatters over the stone floor, tips precariously over the three (his fingers dig into his palms) and then settles on 20.

Instantly, brilliant lights flash overhead and a bell begins to ring.  Like he's hit a jackpot at a casino, and the whole cave is lighting up like a Stone of Farspeech to tell him he's a winner.  He staggers to his feet, slamming his hands over his ears, pretty certain he's just called all the worm's attention onto himself.

A vortex of light spins around him.  He hears Garl's laughter.  "Joker's Wild!" he cries.  "Winner's choice!  Whaddaya need?  Any one object you ask for, it's yours!" 

Davenport squints against the light.  As his vision adjusts, he can see objects in the vortex, strung together with filaments of golden light.  Tools, platters of food, weapons, clothing.

He reaches a hand into the vortex.  The light runs through his fingers like cool water in a stream.  Ever-shifting, insubstantial, waiting only for his command to make it real.

"Give me a weapon strong enough to stop the cave worm," he says.

The golden light condenses, and something smacks comfortably into the palm of his hand.  His fingers close around the hilt, and the vortex dissipates.

He's holding a familiar golden double-headed war axe.

"Hey, Emissary," says Arumdina.  "'Sup?"

His jaw drops.  "Arumdina?" he squeaks.  He just manages to get his second hand on her hilt as her full weight settles into reality. 

"You sound surprised.  What were you expecting, a throwing knife?"

"I dunno, a…a sword or something?"

She snorts.  He suspects she'd be rolling her eyes, if she had any.  "Kid, you rolled a twenty!  You're getting me."

Well, he's not going to look a gift divine axe in the metaphorical mouth.  He peers around the corner, but the worm isn't approaching him.  The lights and the claxons had been an illusion, then, conjured for him only.

It is, however, getting perilously close to Merle's position. 

He tilts Arumdina so she can see it.  "Think you can take it out?" he whispers.

"Pffft!  Who do you think you're talking to?  Just aim me really carefully.  You've got only one shot at this."

Its mouth opens, showing rows of triangular, shark-like teeth, each as big as Magnus's hand.  It leans down to swallow Merle.

Davenport steps out of the tunnel.  "Hey ugly!" he shouts, in his loudest, most commanding voice.  "Stay away from my family!"

The worm's massive head swivels towards him.  It launches its full body in his direction, like a train leaping the tracks.

"Now, now!" Arumdina shouts.  "Slice the air!"

He's not as strong as Garl.  He can't throw her.  So he just brings her down in a two-handed overhead strike.

The air parts in front of him.  He hears a boom, and the sickening splorch of metal sinking deep into flesh, and the cracking crumble of rocks.  A cloud of dust and debris flies up into the air.  It sounds like the whole earth is coming down on top of him.

He closes his eyes and flings one arm up to protect his head.  The cloud of debris rolls over and past him.

Silence comes slowly.

"Huh," says Arumdina, when the roaring and crumbling has finally faded to nothing.  "Not bad, kid."

He opens his eyes.  The worm is sliced in two.  A cut like the mark of a giant claw mars the stone wall behind it. 

He raises an eyebrow.  "I'm not a kid," he says.  He's—well, he doesn't know how old he is anymore.  He _feels_ old.  Far too old for his too-young body. 

She laughs.  "When you're a few dozen millenia old, then we can talk.  Anyway, time's up!  See ya around, kiddo."  And she vanishes in a puff of golden glitter. 

Davenport tucks the die back in his pocket and makes his way to the other side of the cavern.  Merle is still breathing, thank the gods.  He pours the healing potion down his throat.

Merle sits up, sputtering, as his wounds knit back together.

"Taako's dead," says Davenport.  "Get Lup and Lucretia healed.  I'll look for Magnus.  We're retreating, for now."

Merle staggers to his feet, rubbing his head.  He looks past Davenport, at the sliced-up worm and the giant-sized gouge in the wall.  His eyes widen.  "What the hell happened?" he asks, voice faint.

Davenport is already picking his way down to the cavern floor.  "I got lucky," he says.

 

#

 

It is cycle 63, and the mood around the dinner table is bleak.  The past two cycles have been difficult, and this one is shaping up to be no better.  Davenport managed to convince Merle to wait until the end of cycles to Parley, but they’ve lost him anyway, to a damned landmine of all things.  It’s set a pretty awful tone for this world. 

The twins’ cooking is delicious as always.  But nobody can bring themselves to eat. 

Davenport takes a deep breath.  He needs to cut through this mood before it drags them all down.  This cycle is going to be a tough Light recovery, and they can’t give up yet.  “Listen up, everyone,” he says.

Everyone’s attention focuses on him.  He considers the best approach:  a stirring speech about resolve?  A more gentle comment on their familial bonds?  He interlaces his fingers before him on the table.

Magnus does the same, and the others follow suit.  As if Davenport were about to lead them in a pre-dinner prayer like Merle does.  Which is…not what Davenport was intending.

But…what if he should?  What if he shared his one prayer from home, which only Merle has heard?

_It could mean a lot to them.  When the time is right.  When you think they need to hear it._

His interlaced fingers tighten.  He takes another deep breath. 

“A farmer is counting his cows in the field,” he says, “and he counts 196 of them.  But when he rounds them up, he has 200.”

There’s a pause in the kitchen.  Barry snickers, and then Lup.  Lucretia snorts, and the sound is like a dam breaking, releasing a flood of laughter into the room.  Davenport buries his face in one hand and laughs along with his family, until the tears stream down his face.

 

#

 

Davenport storms into his berth and slams the door.  He needs a break.  He can't _think_ with all the yelling, and they're getting nowhere.

He sits down in his chair and rubs his temples.  They're already halfway through Cycle 67, they know exactly where the Light is, and they can't fucking get to it because of _politics._   Three recovery missions have all attempted in failure, and each one has prompted its owners to hide it further away in increasingly more secure locations.

And now nobody can decide on a new plan.  They've retreated to the ship to regroup and restock, but nerves are frayed and tempers are short.  After hours of increasingly loud debating around the kitchen table, the best he could do was tell everybody to shut up and cool off for the rest of the day.  Stellar fucking leadership on his part, but it was either that or start punching the walls.

He puts a collection of soothing arias on the fantasy music player that sits on his desk, and breathes deeply till he's calm.  He pulls out the golden die and rolls it around in his palm, taking comfort in its sturdy weight.

The die is good for breaking stalemates.

Well.  He shouldn't put this off any longer, and now's as good a time as any, he supposes.  Lucretia's year alone two cycles ago has made it abundantly clear how thin a wire they're walking on.  The slightest misstep could bring an end to their mission.  He needs every tool he can get.

He opens a fresh notebook and lists the numbers one through twenty down the side of one page.  He fills in the ones he remembers.

_5\. Message Dove Sneezes (definitely sarcastic)_

_10\. One (1) use, Conjure Animals (random?)_

_20\. One item, my choice (single use)_

He casts back in his memory for the rolls he made as a boy, but like so many things in his childhood, the details have faded and blurred, like a painting left outside to the elements.  He remembers sitting in the clouds, and he remembers the disastrously humiliating bad hair day, but what numbers they were attached to is long gone.

He sighs, and tosses the die across the floor of his berth.

It lands on a one.

He stands, breath held. 

A wave of disorientation overwhelms him as the ceiling of his berth retreats.  He’s not sure if the room is expanding or he’s shrinking, but he can’t get his legs under him and he hits the ground with a soft thud and the aria blasting on his desk is so loud he howls.  He tries to cover his ears but his hands aren’t working, none of his limbs are working the way they’re supposed to, he’s just wriggling helplessly on the ground. 

“Help!” he shouts at the top of his lungs, as color leeches from the world.  But ‘help’ is not the sound that comes out of his mouth.

He hears, from the other side of the ship, Magnus’s voice.  “Was that…?”  Followed by distant booming footsteps that grow louder and louder.

The door to his berth swings open.  Magnus looks down at him from a much greater height than normal.  His eyes light up, and a genuine grin slides across his face.

“Puppy!” he squeals.

Davenport buries his head in his paws, and whines.

 

#

 

“Okay,” says Barry, “the most likely solution is that he turned into a puppy.  Or, his location was swapped with a puppy, and he’s somewhere else entirely."  He scratches the side of his face.  "One of those two.  Probably.”

“But, like, why?” asks Lup.  “How?”

Magnus crouches down.  “Cap’nport,” he says, speaking loudly and slowly (as if Davenport were deaf, when it’s quite the opposite, everything is _so loud_ now), “if you’re still in there somewhere, give us a signal.”

Davenport sits up and gives the IPRE solute, right fist over his heart.  Or, he tries to.  But he doesn’t know how this body works yet, so instead he just falls over onto his side.  Real fucking dignified, there. 

Barry adjusts his glasses.  "That's, uh, inconclusive."

Taako sniffs.  "Wait, wait, I got this."  He scoops up a wad of dough from where he'd been kneading it on the kitchen counter, rolls it up in his hands, and produces a rubber ball.  "Now, Cap is _way_ too dignified to play fetch.  So, Cap, if you're in there and not, like, a hundred percent puppy right now, do _not_ fetch this ball."  He tosses it across the common room.

Good thinking.  There's no way he's going to fetch a ball on demand, no matter how shiny and bouncy and compelling that ball happens to be.

He sets the ball at Taako's feet and waits for the next toss.

Fuck!  Why did he do that??

He tries to pinch the bridge of his nose/muzzle but his limbs don't work like that anymore and he falls over again.  To his horror, Magnus coos at him, eyes alight with joy.  He covers his head with his paws and groans.  They're never gonna let him live this down.

Lup raises a hand.  "Okay, well I think that's pretty conclusive.  So the question is, how did he become Puppyport?”

Magnus frowns.  “I hear that, Lup, and I like it, but can I suggest Cap’npup instead?”

Lucretia hmms, looking up from her notebook.  “I kinda prefer Puppyport,” she says.  “Rolls off the tongue better.  Nice rhythm.”

“Yeah, but Cap’npup acknowledges the hard work he’s put into becoming Captain.  We could even get a little captain’s hat for him!”

“Yeah, I’m with Mags on this,” says Taako.  “Besides, Cap’npup would look way better on a lil’ t-shirt.  Some real branding opportunities there.”

“Ooh, I’m with Lup and Lucretia on this,” says Barry.  “It’s just…uh…it sounds better?  As a word?”

They all look to Merle.  The dwarf looks at the rest of them, and then waddles over to Taako and Magnus.  “There, that’ll keep it nice and even!”

As one, the rest of the crew facepalms.

Lup glares.  “That’s not the point!” she says.  “The point is giving him the best name, which is obviously Puppyport!”

“Cap’npup!”

“Puppyport!”

“Cap’npup!”

They all look at Davenport.  His jaw drops open.  _This_ is what they’re seriously arguing about?  “Just turn me back, dumbasses!” he shouts.

But all that comes out is barking.

“C’mere, Cap’npup!” says Magnus, holding out his hands.  “I got treats for ya!”

“Puppyport!” says Lup.  “Who wants a good backscratch?”

He huffs, and stalks away.

 

#

 

They don't try to cure him that day.  They don't even get around to trying.  They're too busy debating what the hell to call him.  The next day the debate continues; team shirts are produced, battle lines are drawn, until the debate rivals the Pineapple-on-Pizza schism in sheer intensity and stupidity.  Davenport tries to spend most of the day on the down-low, resting under the kitchen table and waiting for them to make up their minds, until Magnus tosses the ball down the hallway and _godsdammit--_

Magnus scoops him up in his broad hands and Taako slaps a tiny captain's hat on his head, with the word "Cap'npup" stitched in fancy gold thread on the front.

“It is now official!” Magnus crows, holding him up for the rest of the crew to see.  “He is now officially Cap’npup!”

“ _Et tu_ , Taako?” Lup moans dramatically, covering her heart with one hand.

Lucretia sighs, equally dramatically, and makes a notation in her notebooks.

Finally, Taako tries to turn him back.  It doesn't work.  He runs through basic transmutation spells and counter-hexes to no avail.  He thumbs through old notebooks and sets up a ritual circle and sticks Davenport in the middle and spends a good hour channeling power into this spell.  Davenport's fur stands on end as glittering purple magic runs over and through him.  But then it stops hard, and the wind is knocked out of him, like he's just run headlong into a wall. 

The magic cuts off.  He's still a dog, and Taako is swearing.

Lup casts a brief spell with a flick of her fingers.  Her eyes glow briefly.  "Well, here's your problem," she says.  "It's not registering as a transmutation spell at all.  This is gonna sound crazy, but it feels like…the sort of power Merle draws on.  Merle, check this shit out, would you?"

Merle shrugs and extends his hands towards Davenport, closing his eyes as he does so.  He frowns, his face scrunching up in concentration.  "Huh.  Yeah, that is definitely some sort of divine power.  Not Pan's, though."

Taako snaps his notebook shut.  "So you're sayin' the gods just…cursed our captain?" 

Merle shrugs.  "Well, _a_ god."

"Maybe it’s a blessing?" Magnus offers.  "Now we get to hang out and be best buds!  And I can take him for walks and make sure he gets plenty of exercise, and he'll get to relax for once and not have to worry about anything!"

"You're not seriously considering…leaving him like this?" asks Lucretia. 

“Looks like we may not have much choice,” says Taako.  “I got nuthin’.”

Merle sighs.  “Well, there is one thing I can try.”  He sits down, legs crossed.  “I cast Commune!”

Taako rolls his eyes.  “Homie, you don’t have ta say whenever you’re casting a spell!”

But Merle ignores him.  A soft golden light falls upon his form.  As usual, he’s left the spell on speaker mode, so when Pan’s voice comes, everyone hears it.

“Hello, my child,” says Pan, from a dull roar of background noise.  “How may I help you?  And please speak up!  I’m at a mad raver right now.”

Davenport pricks up his ears.  He can pick out voices in the background roar, and the dull thump of music.  He thinks he hears a very familiar voice laughing in the distance.

"Oh loving Pan,” says Merle, “can you help me heal my friend from his canine curse?"

"No."

Merle blinks.  His face scrunches in confusion.  Davenport is not surprised, but clearly it was not the answer his cleric was expecting. 

"But with Pan, aren't all things possible?" Merle continues.

"Oh natch, yes!” says Pan.  “I am hella powerful.  But this one is a bit, um, outside my jurisdiction.  So I'm not going to interfere, as a matter of, ah, professional courtesy."

"So there's another god doing this?"

Taako snorts.  “I think that’s hella obvious, Merle, don’t waste your third question on that.”

“Oh.”

The music continues to thump in the background.  "Is that your third question?" asks Pan.

“Uh no…gimme a minute, oh loving Pan.”

“Of course, my child—”

“Hey Pan, check it out!” shouts an indistinct voice from the background.  “Raven Queen is handing down judgment on the punch bowl!”

And then a voice like a thousand cawing ravens rolls through the call.  “THIS LIBATION HAS VIOLATED THE LAWS OF LIFE AND DEATH!”

“Oh hey, Merle, I love you and you’re beautiful, but I gotta go soon.  What’s your third question?”

“Ask him who did this to him!” says Magnus.

Merle shakes his head.  “It has to be a yes or no question!  Pan, will he be all right?”

There’s a pause.  “Hold on,” says Pan, “lemme ask.”  And then the background party noises dim, as if he’s covered a Stone of Farspeech with his divine hand.  Davenport can hear the smothered noise of voices talking; he recognizes Garl, but can’t make out what he’s saying.  Davenport tries to call out to him, as if he could possibly get Garl’s attention, but all he can do is howl.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine,” says Pan.  “This has been great, Merle.  Catch ya on the flipside!”  And then the connection breaks off.

“Well, that was a waste,” Taako mutters.

“What?  I wanted to see if he was gonna be okay!”  Merle waves an arm at Davenport.  “I mean, I think that’s a pretty reassuring answer, right?”

As the crew devolves into arguing over what Merle should or shouldn’t have asked, Davenport kicks open the door in his heart.  _I know you can hear me, Garl_ , he thinks.  _How long is this stupid curse supposed to last?_

“Hello, this is Garl Glittergold, First of the Golden Hills and Watchful Protector of Gnomekind,” says Garl in amiable reply.  “I’m currently attending a Divine Convocation, but your prayer is very important to me.  Please leave a detailed message at the ring of the bell and I’ll return your call when you are ready to receive my message, and not a moment sooner.  Have a delightful day!”  And then a bell rings.

Davenport slams the door shut.

 

#

 

It’s two weeks later, and he’s still a puppy.  He hasn’t been able to do a damn thing to help his crew with their mission planning, because after that first day, they’re all convinced he’s 100% dog now.  Which—okay, maybe he’s developed a taste for raw meat, but that is beside the point.  They’re still stuck on what to do next, because nobody can agree on anything, and he can’t help them.

He’s lounging on the common room couch one evening when Lucretia plops down next to him with a sigh.  She scrubs her face with her hands.  “This is a clusterfuck, huh, Cap?”

“You’re telling me,” he grumbles.  Not that his words come out like that.

Her face, which has been so much more confident since her year alone, suddenly crumples.  He’s startled to find her eyes shiny with tears.

“Lu-lucretia?”  He raises his head and puts one paw on her thigh.  “Are you okay?  What’s wrong?”  The words slur out as a low whine.

She puts a hand on his head.  “I—I’m sorry, Cap, I—”  She covers her mouth with her other hand, and begins to sob. 

He’s so stunned that he doesn’t try to move away from the contact. 

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she says.  “Everyone keeps saying I’m so confident now, they’re so _proud_ of me for stepping up.”  Her mouth twists in a bitter grimace.  “But how much of it is bravery and how much of it is me being terrified of being left alone on the ship again?”

His jaw drops.  “What?” he barks.

She chuckles, but there’s no mirth in the noise.  “Taako’s plan is good, it really is.  But I can’t—I don’t want to be _alone_ anymore.  I’m so sick of being alone.”  Her tears are falling freely now.  She pulls him close against her side.  He doesn’t even know how to put into words the strange senses this body has gifted him with, but he can tell by her scent and the shiver of her skin how scared she is.  And her fear radiates into him, squeezes his heart.  “And he probably thinks I’m just shutting down his plan because I know so much better, now.  Like my saving everyone has made me too proud.  Stuck-up.”  She winces.  “I don’t feel proud, Cap.  I’m just _tired._   Sick and tired and scared of losing everyone again.”

He leans against her, thoughts whirling.  And he realizes this is the first time she’s told him about her year alone.  Not the details—he got the details in her report, clear as day and laid out with almost clinical detachment—but how she _feels_ about it. 

“Lucretia,” he says.  He doesn’t know how to handle these sorts of feelings, his or hers, so he tries to shove them away as usual.  “Listen, Taako’s plan probably leaves you on the ship because he trusts you to keep your head and get out of here if it comes to that.  Anyone left on the ship, that’s a position of trust.  And you have more than earned that trust.”

But all that comes out is barking.

She brushes tears from her eyes.  “I should probably just buck up and talk to him about it.  I mean, I faced down marauders and monsters and—and other things.  I can talk to my fucking family, right?”

“Yes, that’s—that’s a good idea, Lucretia.  Just talk to him.”

She scratches him behind the ears in silence.  And he lets her, because damn that actually feels really good.  Already she smells calmer.  He can sense her fear ebbing slowly away, like the tide.  She takes a deep breath.

“You know,” she says, “I never told you this, but you saved my life.  When I was alone, I—I kept thinking about what you said to me once.  About bravery being a choice I could make.  It…it made things seem more _possible_.  Like I wasn’t doomed from the start.  I could keep making the choice to put one foot in front of the other and—and keep going.”  She takes a deep breath.  “Thank you,” she says.

And before he can reply—before he can even think of what he might say, if he could say anything—she stands up briskly, straightening her robes.  Her newly-confident bearing returns.  And she makes her way to the kitchen, where he can hear Taako clattering around, baking late-night cookies.

Davenport stays on the couch, watching after her.  He feels like he was just given a precious gift, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

 

#

 

Lucretia is the first, but she isn't the last.  Magnus takes him out on walks (he'd be more embarrassed about it but frankly, they've all dealt with each other's messy biology at one point or another over the past two-thirds of a century).  He comes to enjoy the company and the exercise.  (That ball, that _fucking_ ball, he can't get enough of it.)  Magnus talks to him about anything and everything while they play.  And sometimes, Magnus just holds him and weeps. 

"I can't protect them!" he sobs into Davenport's fur.  "I try to keep everyone safe but every time someone dies I feel like it's my fault!  And it never gets any easier.  Taako’s plan is so _risky,_ I know it’s our best bet, but I just—what if something goes wrong?"

"Magnus, you're fine," he tries to say.  "You're strong enough, you're the best security officer we could've hoped for!  I'm so proud of you."  But, as usual, all that comes out is barking.  He shuts his muzzle and resigns himself to letting the big guy cry his big sloppy tears all over his fur, while he sits silent and unable to help.

Barry does this, too.  They're sitting on the ship's back deck, watching the sunset as Lup, Taako, Magnus and Merle run through some Light Retrieval drills using a glowing soccer ball as a prop.  Lucretia stands nearby, acting as the referee, issuing commands with that confident authority he's still getting used to.

Barry rubs a hand down his face.  "Gods, Cap," he says, stroking the fur on the top of Davenport's head.  "It's been, what, twenty years since Lup and I got together?  And there are still moments I look at her and I think, I don't deserve this.  Like I'm gonna wake up one morning and it'll all be a dream I had.  And it's not like--y'know, not like I don't constantly see evidence that I'm loved and I'm needed and people want me around.  But there's logic and then there's this part of my brain that still tells me that I don’t deserve Lup, that I don't deserve to be a part of this family.  Does that make sense?"

"Barry," he tries to say, "of course you're a valued member of--of this weird little family we've made.  It's not about what you think you deserve.  Lup has offered you her love, and you can trust that she's made that choice because she wants to.  And Lup never does anything she doesn't want to do." 

But all that comes out is barking.

Barry chuckles, a little morosely.  "You make a solid point, Cap," he says, pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at his eyes.  "They're just brain gremlins.  I should just, you know, talk to her.  Let her know what's going through my head."

Well, that wasn't what he said, but…it's not a bad idea.  He barks once in agreement.

Barry gives him an awkward side-hug.  "Thanks for listening, Cap.  You're a real pal, you know that?"  And then he gets up and walks down the gangplank to join the others, leaving Davenport alone with his thoughts.

And it happens again, weeks later, when Taako is prepping dinner alone.  The Light has been recovered with no casualties, Lup and Barry are off on a date night, and the ship is quiet. 

"Y'know," says Taako, turning over a steak in the pan, "she'd never say this, Cap, but, uh, Lup really misses you when you're gone."

Davenport raises his head from where he's lying stretched out by his food bowls. 

The statement surprises him.  He's thought often of what his crew does while he's absent, how they handle themselves and how they progress with the Mission.  They've told him more than once that they've felt a little lost without his steady hand on the wheel.  But he's never thought of them as…as missing _him._  Davenport the person. 

Taako chuckles.  "You're, like, the coolest authority figure she's ever known.  Like…"  He hesitates, rubbing at a scar on his forearm that was long-faded by the time they left Tosun.  "We've known some real complete dicks in in our lives.  Never saw a person in power who wasn't an asshole about it.  Never, you know, restrained themselves from fuckin'…takin' _advantage_."  He lets the word hang in the air, sour and ugly.  His ears flick.  "But no matter how pissed off you get at this shitty situation we're all stuck in, you never…you never take it out on us."  He takes another steak, raw, and begins chopping it up into smaller cubes.  "And believe me, this is a shitty situation.  Fuck those Judges, you've fuckin' earned your wrath, my dude."  He dumps the cubes into Davenport's food bowl.  "You've also fuckin' earned this steak, so _bon appetit!"_

He tries to say thanks.  He tries to say a lot of things.  But all that comes out is barking.  So he digs into the steak nose-first, turning over Taako's words in his head.  He's known the twins had a rough childhood, but…Taako has never once been this open about it.  At least, not to him. 

If he had known, he could've--he doesn't know what he could've done.  He can't go back in time and fix the twins' childhood.  But the need to _solve the problem_ still digs into his brain.  It's his job, right?  He's the captain, and the crew is his responsibility. 

But there are sides to them that he's not seeing.  That they haven't let him see.  He's not sure what to make of this. 

To be fair, there are sides of himself that he's never shared with the others.  Lup is still the only one on the crew who knows he used to be a punk-ass kid who drag-raced through the city streets, and afterwards he'd begged her to keep that information to herself.  And nobody knows he's a divine emissary to a gnomish trickster god.  Not even Merle.  He's pretty sure.

Taako leans against the kitchen counter, arms folded across his chest, and watches him eat.  "Y'know, if we were gonna be stuck on a ship with a captain for, like, decades," he says, quietly, "I'm glad it was you."

Davenport crosses the kitchen and leans quietly against Taako's leg.  Without words, it's the best he can do.

Maybe he can't fix this.  And maybe that's because Taako and Lup aren't _broken._   They're not machines with jammed gears and missing parts.  They're living hearts who've gotten a little dinged up over the course of their lives, but haven't they all, by this point?  Maybe his crew don't tell him these things because he's too busy barking at them, trying to solve the problem, driven by a need to be a fixer.

Maybe he needs to shut up once in a while and…and just let them talk while he listens.  Maybe they just need someone to hold while they cry it out.  Maybe he can just… _be._  

Davenport the person. 

Something shifts inside him, like a fist unclenching.  And he realizes that whatever power is holding him in this shape has finally loosened, and he can turn back at any time.

Garl sits at the kitchen table.  He gives Davenport a jaunty thumbs-up. 

 _Nah,_ he thinks, _I'm good._

And he stays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen I have been so excited to get this chapter out there. I have been sitting on the ridiculous Puppyport idea for so long (thanks to the TFW Discord for running with it!) and I just needed an excuse. I also just wanted an excuse to write Davenport wielding Arumdina, but I am the writer and I do what I want, and so here we are!


	7. Silent World

> _In the beginning, after the world was created, the various gods and goddesses dispersed among the world to claim portions of it for themselves.  Moradin the Dwarf decided to go underground, to explore the caverns and to hew a people out of the living rock.  Garl Glittergold, the Joker, came to him and said, “Friend, let us explore the deeps together!  For two sets of eyes can see more than one.”_
> 
> _Moradin agreed, and the two traveled together into the deep caverns under the earth.  But when it came time to set to work at digging and carving, Garl would not stop trying to make merry and play pranks on his friend.  Finally Moradin sent him away.  “Go explore the tunnels further,” he growled, “and leave me in peace!”_
> 
> _“Light hearts make light work,” said Garl, but when Moradin was not moved, he journeyed further into the Underdark on his own._
> 
> _And there he beheld a curious sight:  a race of cave-dwellers working hard to pull jewels and precious stones from the rock.  Garl sensed that they were a good-hearted people.  But they were lost, and they were lonely, and they were incomplete._
> 
> _So Garl Glittergold told them a joke.  And the cave-dwellers laughed, and in their laughter they were made whole--_

Davenport looks up from the book on his lap.  He’s heard this origin story plenty of times before, back in his warren temple.  It felt weird to him then, like an indictment.  A suggestion that he wasn’t a real gnome, that he was somehow _incomplete._  

He wonders how many other young gnomes had been like him.  Introverted, serious, feeling disconnected from warren life.  Had they found ways to put on a smiling mask?  Or had they, like him, sought refuge in anonymity? 

He rubs his face and sets the book aside, into a nook of the tree he's sitting in.  There's a small stack of books he's raided from one of the libraries on this silent world.  It's a quiet cycle, no enemies to speak of, and a relatively straightforward Light retrieval.  And now the crew have gone off on their own little tasks, taking advantage of the wealth of arcane information to expand their skills.

It would almost be peaceful, if the silence weren't so damned eerie. 

He picks up another book, a slim purple journal, and opens it up to the next exercise.  Opening his hand, he conjures an illusory pocket-watch.  It's a simple design with almost no ornamentation to speak of, but the gleam of the light off its metal surface is plausibly realistic.  Far better than the cartoonishly simple illusions he used to make.

> _A clearly-defined illusion must begin with a clearly-defined idea_.  _Try closing your eyes and shaping the image in your mind before creating it._

He closes his hand over the illusion, takes a deep breath, and tries again.  Tries to picture it in his head:  delicately flourished brass hands, complicated etchings on the casing, a soft tick-tick-tick of gears.

He opens his hand.  The watch is exactly as he pictured it, ornate and realistic right down to the ticking noise.  The only tell is the lack of weight in his palm.  He's…actually a little surprised that came out so well.

He reads on.

> _Light hearts make light work!  Try playing with form, texture, color.  Having fun is an excellent way to discover what your illusions are capable of._

Sure.  He'll try to have fun on this planet-sized tomb.

He closes his eyes and thinks a bit more, stretching the idea of the pocketwatch in his mind.  When he opens it again, it appears literally stretched out:  more oblong than circular.  The watch now has four wheels.  When he opens the lid, a tiny plush seat pops up on the surface of the glass, along with a tiny him on the seat and a tiny steering wheel in front of him.  The watch turns donuts in his hand, and the tiny-Davenport beeps the horn, grinning as he leaves skidmarks on his own palm.

Okay, that is actually kind of funny.  He laughs despite himself.

A rustling in the bushes below catches his attention.  He glances down, the illusion vanishing the moment his focus shifts.  He thinks he sees the corner of a red robe sticking out past a weedy hedge nearby.  He sighs in relief.  It's just one of his family goofing off.  The figure shifts, and he sees the corner of a long, pointed elven ear gleaming with gold studs.  Taako, then.

What is he up to, anyway?  Something sneaky.  Otherwise he'd have made himself known.  Maybe setting up a prank?

He sighs.  Now he'll have to be on guard during his study sessions.  He'd hoped to have some privacy while perfecting his illusions.  (And, well, reading up on the lore of Garl Glittergold.  The library's section on Illusion magic is full of books on Garl, whose domain is illusion.  On a spur of the moment decision, Davenport picked up a book of lore about his patron, for a study session that is honestly long overdue.  But this is a private matter, and the idea of his crew catching him in the act fills him with a fear he can't quite name.)

_Just tell them,_ says a voice in the back of his head.  Not Garl’s voice, but his own.  _Tell your family the truth about yourself._

But the truth has gathered so much weight over the decades, it feels like a boulder lodged in his throat.  Impossible to move without divine intervention.

His ears flick at the subtle shift of branches as Taako slips away with not-quite-perfect stealth.  He sighs once more and returns to his studies, creating more and more elaborate illusionary constructs.  He even attempts to recreate Arumdina, but he dismisses her quickly when she remains unnervingly silent.

Gradually the light begins to fail as the sun starts slipping below the horizon.  He tucks the books of illusion into his knapsack and begins the climb down to the tree.  He leaves the book of Garl lore up in the tree, tucked in a small hollow.  It’s not like there’s anyone left on this plane to steal it from him.

 

#

 

Taako’s being cagier than normal.  He keeps slipping away on little scouting trips, but fails to mention to Davenport what exactly he’s scouting or why.  Whatever the elf is setting up, it’s going to be big.  Davenport keeps one eye on him.

As an extra security measure, he picks out another study tree to spend time in, and sets up a decoy tree with a decoy Davenport sitting in it.

"What is that brother of yours up to, anyway?" he asks Lup one morning over a cup of coffee.  He raises one eyebrow and gives her one of his captainly Looks.  "Anything I should be aware of?"

Lup gives him a small half-smile, and shrugs.  He hasn't seen much of her this cycle; she and Barry are knee-deep in their arcane studies, and they've rarely crossed paths.  "Dunno, Cap," she says.  "I've just been letting him do his thing."  Her smile widens, just a hair.  "But I think it's gonna be something special."

 

#

 

He finds a package waiting for him on his next trip to the library.  It's sitting on a study table he hadn't noticed before, tucked half in shadow among the books on Illusion magic.  It's book-shaped and wrapped hastily in plain brown paper, and tied up with twine.  Written on the paper, in neat Gnomish letters, are the words "A gift for the one who comes after."

He is not as surprised as he might be.  The crew has already come across evidence that at least some powerful arcanists had sensed something apocalyptic coming, even though most of the population appears to have been taken off-guard.  Among homes with half-eaten meals and hastily dropped objects, they'd also found fortified arcane laboratories and well-stocked underground bunkers.  As if one could hide from the apocalypse.

So the fact that someone left a package behind for some hypothetical future traveler to stumble across is not wholly unexpected.  But what is unexpected is the amulet tied to the twine:  a tiny gold nugget strung on a simple cord.  The symbol of a paladin of Garl Glittergold.

He looks up.  Not far from the desk is an obvious hole in the neat rows of books, exactly the same size as the package.  As if, in a moment of divine inspiration, the paladin had grabbed the book and wrapped it right there.

He picks it up, reluctant to open the wrapping.  It feels like disturbing a grave.

Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath and rips the paper away.  Inside is a book in deep green leather binding, gilt with gold lettering.  _The Many Faces of Garl Glittergold._

He laughs at the irony.  The sound crashes through the empty library, sharp and clumsy, and he shuts his mouth.

He adds the book to the pile he's collecting, tucks the amulet into his pocket, and leaves before the tomb-like silence overwhelms him.

 

#

 

The book shocks him.

At first it's nothing new.  It talks of Garl in his role as the Joker, bringing laughter and playing pranks, communicating to his followers and his enemies through jokes and illusions.  It talks of Garl as the cornerstone of gnomish communities, encouraging togetherness and cooperation.  It talks of Garl as the Watchful Protector, defending warrens from outside threats when push comes to shove.

He knows all that already. 

But it talks of other aspects of Garl, things about his patron that he hadn't realized in nearly a century of being his emissary.

The book shocks him, because he realizes how much he just didn't know.

He is a patron invoked by rogues (which Davenport is) and bards (which he is) and adventurers (which he _definitely_ is).  Leaders who serve in his name seek to end conflicts around them and bring others together.  (Wasn't that his job from the beginning?  Didn't he tell the IPRE that he had built a team that works together, as parts combining into a single machine?)

Garl wanders the Golden Hills, ever vigilant against threats.  And Garl wanders the mortal world too, often in disguise, often with the intent of finding magical objects of great power, and stealing away with them before they can fall into the wrong hands. (That has been Davenport's life for 82 cycles.)

Garl's followers wander around getting into shenanigans not because they have nothing better to do, but because they are trying to create stories worthy to offer him.  (If this journey of theirs isn't worthy of a good tale, he isn't sure what is.)

And the book is full of tales of Garl playing pranks not for the fun of it, but to bring low the haughty, to ease tension and strife, and to teach lessons to his followers.  Always it is deliberate; always there is a message behind the smiling mask.

He thinks back to all those extra hours spent at the garage, jury-rigging solutions to bizarre and seemingly intractable problems, learning how to do much with little; and how that skill served him in both the IPRE and on the Mission.  He thinks back to Garl sending him an illusory victim to defend, if he chose--not by overpowering his opponents, but by outthinking them. 

Even the pointless embarrassments of his dice rolls ended up being useful, in a sideways sort of way.  The squirrel in his jacket had forced him out of his room, out of a useless spiral of guilt, and into an evening of quiet camaraderie with Lucretia.  The message doves had given him an opening to get his gnome allies to their goal.  And spending a cycle in the form of a dog had given him a chance to help his crew in a way he'd never been able to before.

Davenport stares at the book.  He rubs his hand down his face, trying to understand what he's reading, trying to process it all.  The only domain of Garl's that he's never touched has been gemcutting.  But everything else he's ever done in his life--especially since the start of the Mission--has somehow fallen under his god's wide shadow.  He's been following Garl in so many ways and he didn't even _know._   And Garl has been shaping him, subtly and sometimes aggravatingly, but always, always leading him to a place he needed to be.  Giving him the tools he needed to succeed, revealing sides of his heart he never even knew existed.

A long-ago conversation with Merle resurfaces, like an old treasure bobbing up out of the water.  _Sometimes you're wandering around looking for the path, and slowly ya come to realize you've already worked your way to the solution, you've already been walkin' the path._

He didn't know. 

Had any of them known?  Him, and all the other quiet young gnomes fading into the background, out of place in a temple full of their joyful, laughing families?  Had any of them ever learned how complex Garl was?  Garl had a hundred ways to take their hand, but they hadn't known, because nobody had ever shown them.

He leans back against the tree's smooth trunk.  "But you knew," he murmurs, through the door in his heart.  "Didn't you?"

But only silence answers him.  There are no people on this world, and there are no gods.

 

#

 

He tries to recreate his family's house: his old bedroom, the expansive kitchen, the warmly cluttered living room.  But he needs to have a clear image in his head for that level of detail, and memories of his youth have worn out with time.  He can't remember the pattern of the wallpaper, or the exact shade of blue in the living room carpet, or where certain things were positioned.  So the illusion is vague, flat, and unnervingly empty with missing details.

It's not real.  None of this is real.  He can recreate all the houses he wants but none of them will be _home._   No matter how much effort he puts into crafting his illusions, no matter how realistic, the wind will blow through them like ghosts. 

He dismisses the house with a wave of his hand, and chokes down a nameless grief that rises in his throat.

When he shows off a house to his crew later on, they remark on the level of detail he's put into the illusion, from the grain of the wooden cabinets to the still life paintings hung on the walls.  But it's no house he's ever been to.

 

#

 

Davenport spots Taako transmuting some scrap material into a squirt gun.  Taako hasn't spotted him yet, and he slips away in silence. 

So whatever Taako's planning, a water fight is involved.  Possibly a large and complex prank?  It wouldn't be the first time.  He's long ago accepted the need to let his crew blow off steam.  But he isn't worried.  He has his decoy set up; if anything, it'll teach Taako that he'll need to be a bit more clever if he wants to get one over on his captain.

He pauses on his way to the helm.  Well, if he's going to turn this into training, why not raise the challenge level a bit?

He builds his own squirt gun.  He keeps both eyes on Taako's behavior now.  So when the elf ropes Barry into cooking plans, and wakes Lup up with a surprise breakfast in bed, Davenport is ready.  He fills his squirt gun and heads out to his decoy tree, and finds a good stakeout place behind some bushes. 

It's a long wait, but he has his books to keep himself occupied.  He picks up _The Many Faces of Garl Glittergold_ , and keeps reading. 

>   _At heart, Garl is a Trickster, and illusion is the trickster's art.  It is overly simplistic to reduce trickery to mere humor—although pretending to be "merely funny" can be a useful misdirection.  No, the true heart of the trickster's art is transformation.  Tricksters transform themselves, shifting their faces to suit their needs, turning the world topsy-turvy.  A trickster's greatest asset is flexibility, and their greatest weapon is the unexpected._

He picks up a quill to make some notations when he hears footsteps on the gravel road.  He sets the book aside, throws an Invisibility spell over himself, and readies the squirt gun in his hands just as Lup and Taako stroll into the park.  Taako comes to a stop and Lup follows.  He points up to the decoy tree, and its decoy Davenport, idly turning pages in a fake book.

"Okay," says Taako.  "So here’s the next best part.  I found out that he does this, like, once a day, right here in this tree, and he has no idea I know."

Davenport smirks.

"And here, I fashioned this for you."  Taako pulls out the squirt gun from beneath his robe and hands it to her.  "Just like, blaze ’im.  ’Cause this is gonna be hysterical!"

Lup takes the gun from his hands and doesn't say anything.  Her shoulders slump and her ears droop.  Davenport shifts his weight carefully, trying to get a better look without making noise.  Her hesitation surprises him.            

"Taako, that is…"  She pauses, frowning.  "The Captain of the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. That is the _Captain_ of our mission."

For a moment, he thinks she's going to walk away.  And for that moment, while his inner Captain nods in approval, another part of him is…sad?  Disappointed?

Shut out?

She takes a deep breath through her nose, hefting the squirt gun in her arms.  "Why do you think I’d wanna—BLAM!"  And she leaps out from behind the bushes and blasts the decoy with water, and Davenport's heart thrills with unexpected joy as the illusion vanishes in a puff of smoke and looks of surprise dawn on the twins' faces.  On an impulse, swept up in the moment, he leaps up onto Taako's back, throwing his arms around the elf's shoulders, and whispers "Illusions!" right in his ear.

The tableau dissolves.  Lup cackles, raising the gun to try to get him, but he flips out of range and she blasts Taako instead.  Taako shrieks and Lup only laughs louder.  Taako waves his hands and summons a small deluge of water right on top of her head, and she gasps and leaps out of the stream. 

"Oh, it is _on!_ " she cries, grinning.  But instead of going after Taako, she swings the gun around and strafes the area, hitting Davenport on the backside as he tries to get out of range.  Cold water soaks through his shirt and he laughs, ducking behind an actually real tree while sending an illusory Davenport to scamper in another direction.  He hears Lup running off in pursuit.

He pokes his head around the tree, and gets hit head-on with a water balloon.  He splutters, wiping water from his eyes as Taako grins.

"More where that came from, Cap'n," he says, showing off a small pile of water balloons hovering just above his shoulder.

"Two can play at that game," he says, conjuring his own stash of illusory water balloons.  He lobs them all at Taako, who lobs his in response.  Davenport dodges out of the ballistic strike range, and Taako takes his illusionary attack straight on, shrugging them off as they leave no water behind.

"Yeah, Cap," he drawls, "no points awarded for the fake balloons.  Lookin' nice, but they don't really stick, do they?"

"No, but this does!"  And he lobs another round of fake balloons at him, and though Taako knows they're not real, he still flinches, instinctively turning his face away.  And in that moment, Davenport whips out his own squirt gun and blasts Taako, who shrieks at the sudden cold splash of actual water.

Lup launches herself out of the bushes, blasting Davenport in turn.  "I will avenge you, brother!" she cries. 

Davenport dodges out of the way, angling to get a return shot in.  Water droplets sparkle like jewels in the sunlight, refracting rainbows.  He feels light, lighter than air, his whole body is laughter.  He thinks his heart might burst from joy.  He didn't know how _fun_ this could be, not playing avoidant defense with his crew's shenanigans but actually throwing himself headlong into them.  

He didn't know.  But now he does.

 

#

 

That is the year the prank wars get serious.  A new contender is on the field and everyone knows it.  Davenport sets the bar high, and his crew are forced to respond in kind.

Cabinets are rigged with glitter bombs and sneezing powder.  The orientation of rooms is reversed, with furniture stuck to the ceiling.  Favorite clothes are dyed in eye-searing colors and patterns.  Pockets are filled with loose pudding.  Dressers are packed with illusory spiders that pour out as drawers are slid open. 

(Watching the crew mince their way around the ship, tentatively touching objects they're not sure are real, is almost as satisfying as watching one of his carefully-laid plans unfold.  Knowing that someone is skilled in illusions doesn't do a damn bit of good if you don't know if something is an illusion or not.  He switches it up, mixing illusions with real objects, just to keep his crew on their toes.)

In an increasing game of one-upmanship, Davenport returns to his ship after a two-week mission to find every single object in his berth gift-wrapped.  He immediately layers the common room with illusory party decorations and throws a party for himself, forcing the crew to sit and watch as he opens every single "gift" with painstaking care.  ("It's that spyglass I've had my eye on for a while!  Thanks, Lucretia!"  "Huh, another red uniform.  Taako, you've been really slacking in the gift-giving department, haven't you?")

The next time the crew comes home to him, they open the door and the walls slide open and the ship unfolds around them like an ever-expanding fractal puzzle box.  He watches their stunned reactions as they stumble along mobius-strip hallways, open up doors to find more doors, find themselves walking on the ceiling, or struggle to navigate a common room that keeps multiplying and expanding, stretching out into a seemingly-endless field of identical couches and tables and throw-rugs.

"So I've done some redecorating while you were out…" he finally says, his voice coming from a hundred duplicate Davenports poking around corners, lounging on couches, peering from dozens of doors.

"You win!" Taako cries, throwing his hands up in the air.  "I give up!  This is a fuckin' nightmare hellscape and I am DONE."

Davenport laughs and collapses the illusion, leaving the crew standing dazed in the common room.  Barry practically falls onto one of the couches, clutching his shirt front and laughing in relief.

"Wait, does this mean the prank war is over?" Magnus asks.

"Yes.  YES."  Taako points an accusing finger at Davenport.  "I declare Davenport the winner for all time, and we're never doing this again because this fuckin' gnome is a monster now, and we never should've let him study fuckin' _illusions._   I blame all of you," and he sweeps his Finger of Judgment over the rest of the crew, "for letting this happen.  _J'accuse!_ "

Magnus pulls a small egg out of his pocket and cracks it.  It immediately explodes in a cloud of shimmering, colored powder that fills the entire common room and drifts down onto everyone.

Taako glares at him.  Into the stunned silence that follows, Magnus says, "I didn't want it to go to waste."

There's a beat.  And then Barry bursts out laughing, and Magnus's roaring laughter follows it.  And suddenly everyone is laughing in a big cuddle pile on the floor, tears leaving streaks down their powder-colored cheeks. 

 

#

 

It is the 92nd cycle.  The Starblaster has brought them to a world of turbulent oceans and glittering, gem-like floating cities.  At the Hanging Arcaneum, Davenport studies jewels and crystals and their use in channelling magical power into artifacts, because at this point, why the hell not?  After over a century of being Garl's emissary, he might as well check that final box. 

The Garl of that cycle chuckles, whispers "Bingo!" in his ear.

He plays around with ways to imbue visual and audio illusions into objects for later recall.  He makes a crystal ball which, when tapped with a small wand, cycles through images of various worlds he's been to.  He starts work on a magical gold coin into which he can record audio logs, but Magnus and Taako immediately "borrow" it from him and record themselves making fart noises so they can play it later during team meetings.

But for his final project at the Arcaneum, he crafts a matched pair of daggers.  The blades are sharp steel and their hilts are wrapped in gold thread, with a glittering sapphire in the center of each crossguard.  The jewels, when activated, each contain a once-per-day charge of the spell Edge of Arumdina, allowing the blades to pass through stone or metal as if it's not there.

"Aww!" Arumdina coos in his ear.  "You made little sisters for me!  What are their names?"

"They don't have names," he mumbles under his breath, trying not to disturb the other students working in the lab.  Thankfully the sound of banging hammers and whirring gears and other people talking covers the sound of his voice.  "They're just daggers."

"Pffft.  You can't make enchanted weapons like that and _not_ give them kickass names!"

He rolls his eyes.  "Okay, they're named Lefty and Righty."

"Oh, come on, Emissary!  You can do better than that!"

"All right.  Innie and Outie."

She laughs.  "Points for being a snarky little sass."

"What's Garl have to say about this?  He's being awfully quiet."

"Eh, he's on another call right now.  I guess he's not particularly invested in what you name your weapons."

"But you are."

"Hell yes!"

He rolls his eyes.  "All right.  How about Boneslicer?"

She laughs.  "Morbid."

"Throatcutter.  Heartstopper.  Bloodspatter-er."  He grins.

"I'm detecting a theme here, and frankly I’m beginning to think no one should put you in charge of naming anything, ever."

"They let me name the Starblaster."

"Case in point!  Your ship doesn't blast anything, let alone stars.  I'm disappointed you would mislead me like that!"

He feels heat crawl across his neck.  "It's not--"  He frowns.  "Okay, it's a clumsy name, I admit.  But I like it.  It…means a lot to me."

He can practically feel Arumdina moving closer, like someone shuffling along a bench to get in closer to a quiet conversation.

He glances over his shoulder.  The other students, spread out among the lab, are deep in their work.  He's not the only one who mutters to himself, so nobody bothers looking over at him.  He sighs.  "The first time I saw bonds affecting an engine," he says, voice barely above a whisper, "there was a bright blast of light, like…like a star being born.  I…guess I was thinking of that."

That night seems so long ago, now.  Key falling ill, Garl subbing in, the city unfolding like a fractal puzzle box.  Dancing through the planes in his Streetslicer. 

All of that's gone now.  He'd kept the remarkable arcane core, displayed in his office at the IPRE, even though it never repeated that remarkable transformation.  It's inside the Hunger now anyway, along with Key and the garage and the long-scrapped Streetslicer and all the other dragonriders who ever sailed down the darkened city streets in search of transcendence.

"Key," he says, picking up one dagger, weighing it in his hands.  He picks up the other.  "And Bee."

Arumdina doesn't say anything.  But he can sense the warmth of her approval.

 

#

 

Near the end of the cycle, the crew gathers for yet another strategy meeting.  But this one is different, because now the crew offers plans to finally stop the Hunger.  He orders a vote.  They decide on the artifact plan, and Davenport is more than a little relieved.  Lucretia's plan seems…extreme to him, and even though Barry and Lup can't one-hundred-percent prove that her shield will sever all the bonds of the Prime Material Plane, the risk seems too great.  At the very least, they'd be trapped on their final world.  It seems like more of a last-chance gamble than a Plan A.

So they work on their artifact plans.  Over the next few cycles, Davenport tears through dozens of different designs, chasing an idea that moves like a shadow through his brain.  He finds the best raw materials he can, and spends long nights meticulously crafting the most useful, most desirable artifact he can think of.  He can't speak for what everyone on a world might want, but he knows what _he_ wants.  He knows what he would quest the world over to obtain.

The Oculus—or what will become the Oculus—is beautiful.  A shimmering, faceted lens of unbreakable glass, ringed in a frame of gold.  When he imbues it with the Light, it will have the power to make illusions real.  Not false images full of ghosts, but real, tangible objects.  Anything he can imagine, he can have.

It’s an artifact worthy of an emissary of Garl Glittergold.


	8. Faerun

Garl Glittergold of Faerun senses Davenport the moment he enters the world.  He focuses his awareness on the little silver ship, on the helm, on the gnome with his hands in a death-grip on the wheel. 

He's puzzled, at first.  He's never seen this gnome in his life, never made this gnome a divine emissary.  Yet there it is, the golden stamp on his aura, marking Captain Davenport clear as day.  It's…familiar.  But not too familiar.  But not too _not_ familiar, either. 

He is Garl's emissary.  His Utirhant.

The ship slides into the Prime Material Plane and makes a bee-line for a falling star of almost unspeakable power.  The ship's crew catches it before it even hits the ground.

"Well, that tracks," he remarks to Arumdina.  "Definitely don't want something like that falling into the wrong hands."

"Still…they came out of nowhere," she says.  "I've never seen anything like that.  How could this guy be your emissary and you've never even met him?"

Garl ponders this.  He grins, an amused light glittering deep in his emerald eyes.  "There's only one solution," he says.  "I must've pranked myself!  Good job, me!"

Arumdina laughs.  She always appreciates his jokes.

 

#

 

Garl watches in surprise and growing concern as the crew, with Utirhant in the lead, splits up the fallen star into seven portions and stuffs the power into an equal number of artifacts.  He is not a god known for divination, but even he has a bad feeling about this.  And when Utirhant leaves the ship and drops his radiant Oculus off at a pawn shop, he is stunned into momentary silence.

"Um," says Arumdina.  "He's yours, right?"

Garl reaches down and touches Utirhant's mind.  It's the first time he's done so directly.  He finds a very orderly mental landscape, with everything in its place and a place for everything.  Strong bonds of family, a well-formed sense of justice edging into righteous anger, a goodly amount of bravery, and a hard cold knot of necessity lodged in the middle.

"Hey," he says.  "What the heck are you doing?"

Utirhant's ears flick.  But he doesn’t respond, doesn’t stop what he’s doing.  Garl feels a cold wall between them.  The door is shut.

“You can’t just put something like this out there!” he says, louder this time.  But his so-called emissary ignores him. 

_“I know you can hear me, Utirhant,”_ he says, letting more of his divine essence into his voice.  His words boom and echo, the voice of a god trumpeted in gold.  _“You must not do this.”_

The only sign that Utirhant gives is a brief wince, like he’s coming down with a headache.  But he sets the Oculus down on the counter nonetheless, and bargains briefly with the clerk, who looks over the artifact with growing interest.  In the end, he walks out of the shop ten gold pieces richer.

Garl watches him leave, struck wordless.

 

#

 

It is less than a year later, and the world is on fire.

Garl is the Watchful Protector of gnomekind, but his heart bleeds as people of all races are consumed by the Grand Relics, one by one by one thousand.  The lives claimed by the Oculus cut particularly deep. 

He reaches out to Utirhant several times, or tries to.  But the gnome’s heart is hardened against his pleas.  Hardened against the death going on below him.

So Garl tries a different route.  He drops messages to his Jewels, telling them that the Oculus must be found, and somehow contained or destroyed.  His people, brave and daring and endlessly clever, heed his words and track it down.  Several times, in fact.

It is a disaster every time.

They are killed by strange unkillable monsters with too many teeth, shot dead by mystical weapons conjured into being before their very eyes, and in one notably horrific example, sucked screaming into a small black hole.  And the few who survive to get close enough to the Oculus succumb to its thrall. 

Gnomes are clever and imaginative people, and their war machines are as intricately beautiful as they are deadly.

Garl weeps with his people.  They don’t even see the silver ship sailing above their heads, but he does.

 

#

 

In the end, he walks into Utirhant's dreams.  And he finds himself sitting at a small table across from the captain.  It is painted with a map of the night sky, bordered by delicate white flowers.  A deck of cards sits in the middle.

Whenever he speaks in dreams, the setting is always the place that the follower in question finds most holy.  Of course, his followers tend to be loosy-goosy about holy places, so it's always a fun surprise to discover where he'll end up.

Right now, he’s on Utirhant's ship, sitting at a card table.

He glances past the captain, towards the helm.  He would’ve expected to find Utirhant at the wheel, but he realizes quickly that the wheel is his emissary's place of power, and that his place of faith is not the same.  Faith is the place where Utirhant is vulnerable, and he is not vulnerable at the wheel.

So.  A card table, then.

Utirhant looks up from his hand.  His face is cool, composed.

“Well,” says Garl, “I’ll go straight to business.  You need to stop this, Utirhant.  You and your crew need to retrieve these relics before they do any more damage to this world.”

Utirhant shakes his head.  “I’m sorry,” he says, “but no.”

Garl frowns.  He flicks a hand, and a series of illusions hovers over the table:  all the monsters and armies and deadly anomalies brought into the world by the Oculus.  “You can’t continue to let this happen,” he says.  “I’ve sent several of my followers after your relic alone, and each and every one of them has either been killed by its products or succumbed to its thrall.  Your crew needs to fix this.  _You_ need to fix this.  I suspect you’re the only ones who can.”

Utirhant's face is stone.  “We need to see how this plays out,” he says.  “The alternative is far worse.  It’s this, or letting this world be consumed by the Hunger.”  His voice is cold and steady.  "You know what that looks like.  You can look inside my head." 

Garl touches his forehead, and sees the apocalypse.  It happens over and over again, black tar and armies fueled by malice, the deaths of untold billions.  Utirhant winces, but doesn't pull away.

Garl breaks the connection and sits back, regarding his emissary.  He is only slightly relieved to know that Utirhant isn’t doing this out of malice.  But that does nothing to solve this situation.  “There has to be another way.  You’re my emissary, Utirhant.  Which means you must be clever.  You can think your way out of this.”

He frowns, sets his hand of cards facedown on the table.  There’s a hard, cold light in his eyes that Garl does not like.  “You think I’m clever,” he says, very quietly.  “A hundred years ago, you told me I’d be fine, that I just needed to remember what you taught me.  How to be clever, how to outwit my enemies, how to do much with little."  His fingers grip the edge of the table; his knuckles are white. "Maybe you thought that was enough for me to succeed, but it wasn’t.  I’ve had a hundred years to think of a solution and this is the best I’ve found so far, and it wasn’t even my idea.”  For a brief moment, there’s a flicker of guilt in his face.  He closes his eyes and inhales deeply.  “I’m sorry I wasn’t more worthy of your patronage.”

Garl strokes his mustache.  “Pull the relics back,” he says again.  “I’m not letting you give up this easily.  You are capable of thinking of something else.”

“This was the best option,” he says.  He is cold again.  “I have no choice but to try.”

“There’s always a choice.”

Utirhant's jaw clenches.  “You never gave me a choice,” he growls. 

Garl’s eyes narrow.  “What?”

Utirhant slams both hands on the table.  _“You never gave me a choice!”_ he snaps, rising to his feet.  “You just made me your emissary and I never even asked for it, I never _wanted_ it!  I told you to pick someone else and you didn’t!  You picked me and I—”  He winces, choking on his words.  “The best I can do is burn down your world to save it.” 

Garl is also on his feet.  He wants to tell Utirhant he’s always had a choice, but--he isn’t so sure.  He doesn’t know what this other Garl has done, what their relationship has been like for the past…did he say _one hundred years?_   The gnome before him is forty years old, if that.

He doesn’t know what’s happened, not all of it.  But the pain of a hundred worlds is lodged in his emissary’s heart.  Garl's own heart softens.  He extends his arms, silently offering an embrace.

But Utirhant turns away from him, and the dream crumbles.

 

#

 

He watches Utirhant like a hawk, now.  Hoping to gain some more understanding of him, hoping to find a way to get through to him.  But the bleak mood on the ship only calcifies his heart further.  His hidden sorrow curdles into anger.  But far from spurring him into action, the anger only festers inside him.  He is utterly dedicated to his path, and he is convinced it’s too late to change course.

The others on the ship aren’t much better.  The human, Magnus Burnsides, feels equally helpless, even though he shows his sorrow more obviously.  The elf Taako and the human Barry are fixated on their missing companion.  The dwarf Merle, who appears to be something of a spiritual advisor and confidante of the captain, seems to have convinced himself that dancing through the problem and keeping everyone’s minds off the devastation below them is the best solution. 

Garl can appreciate the usefulness of levity in hard times.  It’s one of his things.  But comic relief is one thing, and willfully ignoring a problem you can fix is completely different.  Right now, Utirhant needs no encouragement in ignoring the problem.

There is only one other on the ship whose mind is still pliable, who spends her time working at a solution.  He slips into Lucretia’s office and sees her thoughtfully studying a floating jellyfish.  Garl can sense her plan forming:  a plan to end the Relic Wars in an instant, give her friends a chance at happiness, and stave off the apocalypse. 

It’s a clever plan.  Reshuffle the deck, start a fresh hand.  One could almost classify it as a damn good prank. 

And if the pain of this hundred-year mission is what caused the hard, cold knot to form in his emissary’s heart, then removing that knot could only be a good thing. 

He nudges Lucretia, just a little bit.  _It’s a good plan_ , he tells her.  And in the long weeks that follow, he keeps her mind sharp and her pen clever as she carefully sculpts her family’s new lives.

 

#

 

Garl doesn't anticipate the sheer power of the Voidfish.  He sees the hard light in his emissary's eyes dim to an almost shocking extent, his doubt and detachment giving way to raw panic.  Utirhant staggers out of his chair, and Garl intervenes quickly to try to save him, nudging his foot an inch to the left.  It's enough to throw Utirhant's balance off, so when he falls he hits the soft carpeting instead of banging his head on the table's sharp corner.

"I'm Davenport, _I'm Davenport!"_ he screams.  Tears are running down his cheeks.  But even that small shred of understanding is fading as his mind collapses in on itself.  Garl reaches out, touching his mind, trying to mitigate the damage.  It's almost too late.  But he grabs onto his emissary's name, the last name he has left, and wraps it with his divine protection. 

"You're Davenport," he says, "and you're mine, and I love you."

Davenport's eyes open, and for the first time since he's arrived in Faerun, there’s no wall between them.  Garl reaches out a hand and grabs Davenport's, just for an instant.  And then the gnome's eyes roll back in his head and he faints.


	9. Moon Base

"Okay, buddy," says Garl.  "You can do this."

Davenport presses his face into his pillow.  "Davenport," he mumbles. 

"Come on," he cajoles, as gently as he can.  "Just give it a try!  And if you make a mistake, well…no harm no foul, right?"

Davenport stumbles out of bed with a groan and looks blankly around his bedroom in the Neverwinter apartment where Lucretia has taken him to live.  Lucretia is out in the kitchen, making breakfast.  Garl stands in the middle of the room, arms crossed, watching his emissary try to figure out what to do next.

He walks to the dresser. 

"Good, good," says Garl.

Davenport picks up the towel with shaking hands and washes his face in the bowl of cool water.  He sloshes water a bit, but doesn't seem to notice. 

"All right!  Step one down.  Now, what's step two?"

Davenport looks around the room, a little lost.  Garl can sense him trying to navigate around the static in his head, nudging his thoughts this way and that.  Like trying to work his way through a maze without touching the static-shock walls.  The gnome's eyes land on the set of clothes Lucretia has set out for him, hanging by a low hook on the closet door.  She usually helps him dress after breakfast, but Garl wants to see what his emissary can manage on his own.

Davenport pulls the clothes off the hook, and they land in a heap on the floor.  He frowns, scoops them up and carries them over to the bed.  He looks down at himself, brow furrowed, for a good half a minute before he manages to shuck his nightshirt off. 

Getting his trousers on proves a bit more complicated.  Davenport ends up sitting on the floor and kicking his feet through the leg holes one by one.  There's a lot of wiggling and grunts of frustration, and when he finally gets both legs in, he seems uncertain about how to pull them the rest of the way up while he's sitting on the floor.  He tries to stand but his feet are still inside the trouser legs, so he stumbles and lands back on his rump.  He sits on the floor for a moment, staring at the bumps of his feet through the fabric, frowning.

"Should we, uh, help him?" Arumdina says quietly behind Garl's shoulder.

"Give him a chance," Garl mumbles in reply. 

Davenport rolls up the cuffs of his trousers, until his feet poke through.  Then he grabs the post at the foot of the bed and hauls himself to his feet a second time.  This time his feet are no longer caught, and he pulls up the trousers the rest of the way.  

Garl smiles.  "Good job."

"Davenport?" comes Lucretia's voice from the kitchen.  "Is everything all right in there?"  Footsteps approaching.

Garl flicks a finger, and the eggs on the stove begin to smoke.  Lucretia swears, and her footsteps retreat again.  "Okay, Davenport," he says, "what's next?"

"Davenport," he says, pointing to the shirt that's still rumpled on the bed.

Garl smiles.  Davenport pulls the shirt on over his head.  There's a bit of arm flailing, but he gets it on without a problem.

The waistcoat is, in theory, the simplest part.  But it proves the most challenging.  Davenport's manual dexterity has gone out the window with most of his memories.  He fumbles with the buttons and only manages to get one through a hole--and the wrong hole, at that--before huffing in frustration and sitting hard on the floor, glowering.

"Hey, you did fine!" says Garl.  "See?"  He rolls the bedroom mirror so the gnome can see himself reflected.  "That's progress."

Davenport's frown gives way to a look of surprise.  "Davenport?" he asks, pointing to himself.

"Yeah, bud.  That was all you."

He gets to his feet.  And then he dashes off to the kitchen to show Lucretia what he's done. 

Garl sighs, and drifts back to the Astral Plane.

 

#

 

Garl is sitting in a tree in a park in Neverwinter, elbows on knees, chin propped on his interlaced fingers.  Davenport and Lucretia sit on a bench below the tree, tossing breadcrumbs to the ducks in the pond.  Or, to be fair, Lucretia is feeding the ducks while Davenport stares into the distance, glassy-eyed.

"This doesn't…feel right," he says.

"That's because it isn't funny," says Arumdina.  "It never was."

He sighs in tacit agreement. 

Garl has pranked his fellow gods since time immemorial.  He's pranked kings and high priests and all sorts of stuffed-shirt authority figures.  A good dose of humility is good for the proud and the rigid, he's always thought.  It keeps people in power grounded, so they don't forget their connection to the people they serve.  His own high priests never take themselves too seriously.  He makes sure of that.

But this whole mess doesn't sit right with him.  It's too much.  What's the point of a good ego-deflating prank if the person at the other end can't remember what he did wrong in the first place?  Davenport was never a villain, just a good gnome who made a terrible decision.  He might have deserved a slice of humble pie, but he didn't deserve to lose the very core of his heart.

All he has left is the golden die.  Lucretia let him keep it, as the one possession he had which didn't seem to bring him pain to look at.  But he doesn't know what it's for.  He recognizes Garl, and seems to understand that the two are connected.  But the memories that made that die meaningful to him are gone.

Garl's had his own share of fuck-ups.  One doesn't spend eons pulling off bizarre and unexpected schemes without some of them falling out the wrong way.  But he hasn't miscalculated this badly in a while.

He's tried to nudge Lucretia again, hoping she might be convinced to inoculate Davenport.  But her heart is stone and her path is set, as much as Davenport's had been when he'd dropped the Oculus into the world.

Garl reaches down and touches Davenport’s mind.  The well-ordered landscape is gone, replaced by fog and static.  Davenport sits in the middle of it, not even bothering to move.  He’s charted a few tentative courses through the fog, a few safe paths for his thoughts to travel down.  But there’s a gaping hole in his heart where a purpose used to be—a Mission to fight for, a family to lead—and without it, he doesn’t see the point in trying.

“Utirhant,” says Garl.

Davenport winces at a burst of static.  He draws his knees up to his chest, curls in on himself.

Garl sighs.  He gently brushes away some of the fog in Davenport's mind.  He can't restore the missing memories, but he can at least make his emissary a little more lucid, for a time. 

“Davenport,” says Garl. "Come on, buddy!  Don't just sit there.  There's a whole world for you to explore!"

Davenport's ears twitch.  Slowly, his distant gaze comes into focus.  Garl snaps his finger and an illusory toad appears, hopping through the grass past Davenport's feet.  Its deep green backside glitters.

"See that?" says Garl.  "It's an emerald toad.  Very popular as pets in the forest warrens.  When the sunlight hits them, they shine like emeralds!"

Davenport climbs off the bench and follows it, curious.  Lucretia looks up from the ducks, keeping an eye on him.

He slips in a patch of mud and faceplants.  "Davenport!" he cries, spitting mud out of his mouth.

"Davenport!" Lucretia echoes, running to his side.  She helps him into a sitting position and wipes the mud from his face with a handkerchief.  "Are you okay?"

"Davenport…" he mumbles, miserable.

Garl winces.  "Okay, that didn't quite work out as expected…"

"Maybe we should just get home and get you cleaned up," Lucretia says.  She stands up and reaches down to offer him a hand.

The toad leaps out of the grass at her feet.  She shrieks and leaps backwards, and her heel slides through the mud and she lands on her rump, splattering mud all over her skirt.

Davenport blinks.  And then he chuckles.

Lucretia's face turns red.  "That's not funny, Davenport," she grumbles.  She reaches up to brush a stray lock of pale hair off her cheek, but her hand is covered in mud and she ends up streaking it across her cheek.  "Oh _tits_."

"Davenport," he replies.  And then he lobs a handful of mud at her.

She gasps.  He laughs, applauding.  Lucretia stares at her captain.  Very slowly, as if she can't even believe she's doing this, she scoops up her own handful of mud and says, "Two can play at this game."

The mud hits him in the shoulder.  He gasps, looking mock-offended, and then laughs even more loudly.  Lucretia grins, smearing more mud on her cheeks in dark swirls, like she's applying makeup.  "Mm, yes," she deadpans with heavy gravitas, adding some just above her eyelids.  "I will look stunning at the ball tonight." 

Davenport falls back into the mud, laughing so hard he's shaking.

"Um," says Arumdina.  "Did you set this off?"

Garl scratches his head.  "I didn't," he says.  "But I like where this is going."  He stretches out along the branch, looking down at his emissary.  He's never seen Davenport laugh so loudly or so genuinely since he'd arrived on this plane.  It's a beautiful sound.  Even Lucretia's façade cracks a little and she giggles.  "Maybe…"

"You've got that tone in your voice," says Arumdina.  "You've got an idea."

Garl rubs his chin.  "Look," he says, "I may not be able to fix the Voidfish problem.  But…he's not keeping me out anymore, right?"

"I suppose not."

"So!"  Garl sits up, smacking his hands together.  "If nothing else, I can at least help him find his joy again."

Arumdina is silent for a moment.  "Long way to go, just to remember how to smile," she remarks.

Garl doesn't disagree.  But it's the best he can do.

 

#

 

Davenport has a best friend, whose name is Garl.  He can't say Garl's name, and sometimes he can't even remember it.  But Garl doesn't seem to mind.  He knows who Davenport is, and that's the important part.    
  
Garl is a goofy sort of gnome, always telling jokes and showing him card tricks.  Davenport talks to him a lot.  Garl is the only person who always knows exactly what Davenport is saying.  It's nice to have someone to talk to, who understands him.  He loves Lucretia, and she takes care of him, but it's not the same.  Davenport doesn't even have to speak out loud for Garl to hear him.  Even on his really bad days, when he can barely even get his own name out through the fog in his head, he can whisper in his heart and Garl will hear him.  
  
Lucretia doesn't seem to notice Garl is there.  Nobody does.  Garl is very sneaky like that.  But he's a nice sort of sneaky, so it's okay.    
  
Garl comes with him to the moon base.  He's not on the payroll, and he doesn't wear a bracer, but he can go anywhere Davenport can, which is most places on the base.  In fact, there's no place Davenport can go where Garl can't find him.  It's comforting, in a way.  Like there's a door in his heart, and Garl can step through it whenever Davenport needs him.  
  
When Lucretia gives him the dark water to drink, he remembers the Relic Wars.  It's an awful thing to remember, and it makes him sick just to think about it.  But he knows what he needs to do now.  He throws himself all the more into Bureau work, running whatever errands Lucretia asks him to, because he knows he doesn't want the Wars to happen all over again.  The Relics need to be found, and destroyed.  
  
Garl is very pleased when Davenport tells him this.  Davenport is just happy to be helping.  Sometimes he gets a feeling that this is what he was supposed to be doing for a long time now, but his head hurts when he tries to think about that, so he doesn't.  
  
Sometimes Garl leads Davenport around the base, sneaking around to watch other employees.  At first, Davenport isn't sure why.  But then he watches what his friend does.  Whenever tensions run high, Garl sets up a prank (bucket of glitter over the door, laughing powder sprinkled over the morning's muffins, instigating a food fight).  And like a magic trick, the tension in the air diffuses.    
  
Davenport picks up on what he needs to do.  He might not be able to set up the complicated pranks that his friend does, but he finds his own way to bring cheer when times are tough (and times are often tough around the Bureau).  He draws a big smiley face on Maureen Miller's elevator designs.  He leaves a care package outside Johann’s door when the bard is having a particularly glum day.  He finds Killian and Carey sobbing over the death of Boyland, and he makes them tea and hugs them both and sits with them as they talk out their feelings.  
  
"You're doing great, Davenport," Garl says one night, as they sit out on the grassy quad and watch the stars drift by overhead.  "I'm proud of you."  
  
Davenport smiles at him.  "Davenport," he says.

 

#

 

When the apocalypse comes, Garl is taken off-guard.  By the time he retreats to the banquet hall, he and Arumdina are the only ones left.  Gaerdal Ironhand's domain, so long the unbreachable defense of the Golden Hills, fell with shocking speed, flooded by black goo which is now seeping everywhere in the celestial planes and pouring into the underground homes of his friends. 

"Gaerdal?" he shouts.  "Flandal!  Is anyone still there?"  He spreads his awareness through the Golden Hills, but the gold-tinged trees drip with tar, and the hills are silent.

He curses as the tar sloshes at his feet.  Black tendrils reach for him, stretching out of the tar.  He draws Arumdina and strikes.  The tar doesn't part as he expects.  Instead her blade sinks into it and she screams.  He pulls her back in horror, yanking with all his divine strength as more tendrils cling to her, trying to drag her back in.

"Get it off, get it _off!"_ she cries.

The last of the tendrils snap and he staggers back, climbing onto the banquet table.  "Arumdina, are you all right?" he asks.  "Arumdina…?"

_"Fuck."_

His heart swells at the sound of her voice.

"Ugh, whatever that stuff is, it's cold and it's _angry,"_ she says.  "Garl, I…"

"It's all right, Arumdina."

"No, Garl, you--this isn't all right!  You know I've never turned away from a fight, but this...it's different, in a way I can't explain.  I think…if I go in there again, you might lose me.  And not just that I might be ripped from your hands."  Her voice is faint, and for the first time in all the long millennia he's wielded her, Arumdina sounds scared.  "I think I'll be gone."

Garl looks at the axe in his hands, his boon companion, his friend through thick and thin.  "Don't worry," he says.  And he hefts her over his shoulder, and flings her up into the rafters, where her blade sinks deep into the wood.

"Garl, what the fuck?!"

"It's the end of the world, my dear friend," he says, as gently as he can.  "The best I can do is buy you a few extra minutes."  He sits down hard on the table and smiles grimly at his flooded banquet hall.  "I mucked this one up good, eh?  This was what Utirhant was supposed to stop, this was his mission, and I let the Journal-Keeper make him forget."  He reaches out to his emissary.  The black goo is occluding the connection; he can't pass through to the Prime Material Plane, and it's all he can do to peer through the door in his heart and call Davenport by name.

The gnome peers back, alerted by the sudden pull.  He tilts his head, squinting, like he's seeing through frosted glass and can't quite understand what he's looking at. 

"Davenport," he begins, but isn't sure what else to say.  Trying to remind his emissary of what he's forgotten would only bring him pain, and it would be a futile effort, besides.  He opens his mouth to try another route.  "Keep your family safe," he says.  "I believe in you.  Don't forget that, okay?"

Davenport's eyes widen as the wrongness of the situation begins to sink in.  "Davenport?!" he cries, voice rising.  "Davenport!"  He punches his fist against the barrier separating them, but he can't break through.  

And then the connection is severed.

 

#

 

The die lands on a twenty.  Nothing happens.

Davenport picks it up from the floor of his bedroom and rolls again.  16.  4.  11.  17.  6. 

Nothing continues to happen.

The whole base is quiet.  Lucretia is on edge, her words tight and sharp.  He doesn’t know why.   There’s a storm in the sky and it makes him uneasy.  The grass on the quad is fading and he feels like he should be _doing something_ , but he doesn’t know what. 

_You’re Davenport…_

A feeling in the back of his heart tells him that the die is supposed to do something when it’s rolled.  He’s not sure what.  Something to do with his gnome friend, the one who's in trouble.  Maybe it’ll bring him here.

_…and you’re mine…_

So he keeps rolling it, over and over, Davenport Davenport Davenport, hoping this dread gray tension will break and something will happen.  But nothing happens.

He picks up the die and holds it tight, brings it to his lips.  Maybe if he speaks to it, says a prayer?  Something about cows.

… _and I love you._

He squeezes his eyes shut.  Tears slide down his cheeks.  He is so, so scared.  The door in his heart is open but there’s nobody on the other side.

 

#

 

The Reclaimers are back.  Davenport goes through his routine, or a sped-up version of it, at least.  Lucretia wants the relic _now_ , everything’s happening so fast, and he’s trying extra hard to stay focused while his veins thrum with tension.

He doesn’t know what he can do to fix this.  But his gnome friend—Garl, his name is _Garl_ , he remembers that even if he can’t say the name—told him to keep his family safe.  So when the man in blue jeans attacks Lucretia (his family, the only family he’s ever known), he leaps to her defense.

And when the world opens up and his memories crash through his brain like a sea breaking through a dam, he holds back a scream and forces himself to focus.  He needs to take charge.  He needs to protect his family. 

 

#

 

“This apocalypse sucks,” Arumdina remarks, when the tar begins to churn.  “Now what’s happening?”

Garl flicks his hand, and a long dagger appears.  Arumdina may be out of the way, but he’s never unarmed.  He crouches on the banquet table as the tar coalesces and figures emerge, hardening into beings of shimmering black opal.  At least a few dozen, surrounding him.  They’re all gnomes, or maybe once were gnomes.

They’re all him.

He sighs.  “So that’s how you got through Gaerdal’s defenses,” he says.  “You know them like the back of your hand.  You know all the weak spots.”

The other Garls glare at him.  _“Join us,”_ they say.  None of their mouths move, but the words seem to come from all of them at once, vibrating through the tar and the opal.

He shrugs.  “Eh, I think I’ll pass.  For one thing, the amenities look terrible.”

 _“You will join us,”_ they say.  _“When we find the Light.  All will be consumed.”_

He laughs.  “That’s definitely not me speaking, then.  I’m never _that_ dramatic.”

Arumdina snorts.  “What’s next?  ‘Are you afraid’?”

The figures shift, and one of them steps forward, taking the lead position in the crowd.  He draws his own axe and readies it.  It’s made of the same black opal, and it is silent. 

Garl’s heart cracks a little at the sight.

"Well," he says, readying his dagger.  "Perfectly symmetrical violence never helped anything.  But if you insist—"

The barrier blocking the Astral Plane cracks open.  Garl grins.  "Whoops, that's my cue!" he says, and leaps from the table.  He lands on top of the lead Garl's head, and uses it as a stepping stone to launch himself into the air, flipping once (just for show) and grabbing Arumdina by the handle.  He yanks her out of the beam, and spins once, popping out of his banquet hall in a shower of golden glitter.

He lands hard on the ground outside Goldspur, the largest warren on Faerun.  It is well-hidden in the mountains, but there is no hiding from the columns of black tar that pour out of the sky.  The gnomes are retreating to the warren tunnels, trying to hide from attackers they cannot see.  Bodies already line the streets.

The air is torn open and the rest of the pantheon appears at his side, one by one.  Gaerdal gives him a sorrowful look.  His armor is dented and scored with clawmarks.

"I could not defend the Golden Hills," he says.  "I am sorry, Garl."

Garl nods.  "I'm just glad to see you alive, my friend," he says.  "Right now, we must defend our people who still live.  Then we'll worry about the Hills.  Gaerdal, you’re with me.  Flandal, circle around and watch Goldspur’s back pass.  The rest of you, split up to the other major warrens.  Nothing gets past you.”

The other gods nod grimly and vanish, one by one.  Gaerdal draws his warhammer and eyes the monsters pouring out of the nearest column of tar.  “It’ll be a close one,” he growls.

“There is nothing left but for us to try,” says Garl.  “What do you say, Arumdina?”

“I say it’s time to kick the Hunger’s collective fucking ass!”

He grins.  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

 

#

 

Davenport grips the wheel of the Starblaster and stares at the oncoming Hunger.  He can't believe they're doing this.  One last-ditch, all-or-nothing attempt to stop the Hunger for good, and if they fail—if they fail—

He can't think about that.  He needs to focus. 

He glances over the readouts, and only has a split second to mentally brace himself as another wave of memories crashes over him:  endless days and nights standing at this very wheel, the times he taught Magnus and Barry how to fly, long nights in the IPRE labs designing the helm, late night joy-rides in experimental aircraft—

He grunts in pain as the memories unspool.

Gods, it was easier on the base when he could just focus on the immediate.  But now it's just him and Lucretia in the helm as he weaves between columns of tar—the Hunger hasn't spotted them yet—and the thought of Lucretia sends another shock of memories through his brain, a hundred years of memories of this woman who's changed so much—

A groan escapes him.  He pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Davenport?" Lucretia asks.

The sound of her calling his name brings a moment of comfort.  But then he remembers where he is, remembers _who_ he is, and the comfort sours into embarrassment.  "I'm fine," he growls, and bites his tongue around the words he can't say right now.  He rolls the wheel, taking the ship around another column of pouring tar.  They're getting close.

"Davenport," a familiar voice calls, through the door in his heart that he'd left open.

He braces himself for another wave of painful memories.  But he never forgot Garl Glittergold, not completely, and the things he did forget slide painlessly back into place.

He can feel Garl's smile.  It's like a warm light shining on his skin.  "My Utirhant," he says.  "You remember."

His heart is torn.  He wants to laugh, to call out to him in joy, glad that Garl wasn't swallowed by the Hunger.  But he also wants to hide from that light, scurrying into shadow like the shameful roach he is.  Arrogant, stupid, short-sighted, callous Captain Davenport, who shut out his god and put himself in his place.  Who gave form and power to his own selfish temptations and put it out into the world, and let the world burn in it.

He barely dodges another column in time, overwhelmed by the emotions tearing through him.  Ten years of not suppressing his feelings has badly eroded his self-discipline, and trying to contain them now is like trying to hold a gallon of water in his hands.  His heart won't stop jackhammering his ribs.  This was a mistake, he can't do this, the Hunger is going to kill them all and it'll be the end of everything because he can't hold it together!  Panic eats away at the edge of his brain, and he thinks he hears static—

"Steady on," says Garl, tapping him on the forehead.  "You've got this."

His head clears.  The memory of static retreats, and his thoughts snap back into place.  He breathes a sigh of relief.

 _"Garl,"_ he thinks, _"I'm so sorry.  If I'm going to die doing this—"_

He doesn't finish, because a green light passes through him.  And he hears the story of Lucretia's journal pass through him a second time, in one painless instant.  There's a pause, and then Garl says, softly, with infinite gentleness, "Oh, my Utirhant…"

And then a blue light passes through him, and he hears a Song.  The fear in the back of his head melts away.  He shifts his weight, hands steadying at the wheel. 

He can do this.  They can all do this.  His crew, his _family_ , fought for this chance for a hundred years, and they're not going to back down now.  Afterwards, if they survive, there will be time enough to sort out all the messes they're tangled up in, but right now?  Right now, they're going to kick ass.

The Hunger has spotted them.  Black tendrils start to converge, on an intercept course with the ship.

"Davenport?" Lucretia asks, warily.

"Not yet," he says.  The tendrils draw closer.

"Davenport?" she asks, more sharply, and right now he's so light he doesn't even mind the way she says his name.  "Davenport?"

In his heart, he can feel Garl smiling.  His patron doesn't even bother nudging him because he doesn't need to.  Joy is flooding Davenport's heart, and it's just like that moment in the Streetslicer when the dust parted and he found himself looking straight down at the world from the top of an impossible road.  He is where he needs to be, and he is alive.

"Okay, buddy," he says, grinning.  "Dance for me."

 

#

 

Garl steps away from the connection, focusing on the battle before him.  A sizable group of Hungerlings has broken from the column and is heading straight for the pass to Goldspur.  "Are you ready, old friend?" he asks Gaerdal.

Gaerdal grunts.  "Aye," he says.  "And so are they, it seems."  He tilts his head to indicate the sound of movement behind them.

Garl glances over his shoulder.  A couple hundred gnomes, armed with makeshift weapons and armor, are marching out of the pass.  Their faces are set with determination.  They're coming to fight.

His old jewel of a heart is warmed at the sight.  They've heard the story of seven brave adventurers with a gnome at their lead.  A story that told them that they are capable of standing up against the Hunger, just as Captain Davenport did.  And they've heard the song, telling them that they can win.

Far overhead, a silver ship goes streaking up into the night.  Utirhant is laughing.

Garl closes his eyes.  "My people," he says, and though he doesn't shout the words, they hear his voice in their hearts.  "May your minds stay sharp and your hearts stay together."  And his blessing goes out over them in a wave of golden light.

"And may your armor shield you from all harm," says Gaerdal, adding his own blessing.

From the other side of Goldspur, Garl can hear Flandal's blessing.  "And may your weapons never fail you."

"Incoming!" Arumdina shouts, as the air parts before them.

Gaerdal throws himself in front of Garl, hunkering down and holding up his shield as a wave of force slices the air.  Gaerdal stays steady, but Garl can tell that the blow is strong.  A deep gouge marrs his shield's surface.

A Garl of black opal stands at the head of the horde, his black axe in hand.

"Thank you, my friend," he says, as Gaerdal gets to his feet.  "But I think it's me he's after.  You take the rest of the horde, I'll lead this one away."

Gaerdal hesitates, but nods.

Garl holds up Arumdina.  "Hey you!" she shouts.  "Yeah, I'm talking to you, Mr. Shitty Off-brand Garl!  For one thing, if you haven't already lost all your street cred with that drab, shitty oil-slick aesthetic, you've definitely lost it when you decided to fight for the Voremaster 3000 up there.  So if you think you can stroll into town and just curbstomp your own people, I've got a few words for you!  The Stupid Police are here, and you are under fucking arrest!"

And Garl turns his back on his doppelganger, and moons him.  And then he runs.

"Ooh, he's after us!" Arumdina calls over his shoulder.  "And he's lookin' pissed!  Dodge left!"

He rolls to the left as another blow comes, slicing a deep trench in the soft ground.  He casts Misdirect and sends a duplicate of himself scurrying in the other direction, continuing to lead Hunger-Garl away from the pass, and turns around to see what he'll do.

His evil double catches up with surprising speed and brings his axe down, slicing through the illusion, which vanishes in a cloud of gold dust.  He looks around, and spots the real Garl.  He hefts his inert black axe and runs towards him, mouth open in an angry howl.

Interesting.  He senses no divine power from this Hunger-Garl; if it's still in there, it's locked away so tight that this creature can't access it.  There's no trickery to his attacks, no subtlety.  Nothing but monstrous brute force. 

"Arumdina," he says, "what do you think?  Double Whammy?"

"You think it'll work?  Doesn't he know all your strategies?"

He smiles.  "Oh, I don't think he'll see this one coming."

She laughs.  "Let's do it!"

He swings around, pulls back Arumdina, and lets her fly.  Hunger-Garl ducks to the side, easily avoiding her as she goes swinging past.  He holds up his hand and she sails back into his grip.

Hunger-Garl lifts his own axe to swing.  Garl shifts his stance, preparing to throw Arumdina again—

\--when the real Arumdina slams into Hunger-Garl from behind, digging deep into his shoulder.  He’s thrown forward, and lands face-first on the ground.

Garl dismisses the fake Arumdina, and the real one pulls herself free and lands comfortably in his hand.  “I think we got him!” she says. 

“Careful,” he says.  He approaches the downed Hunger-Garl cautiously.  He’s not dead, but he’s not getting up, either.  He reaches down to pick up the black axe.

Hunger-Garl leaps up with the speed of a viper, tearing the axe out of his grip before he can react.  He brings up Arumdina to block the blow—Hunger-Garl roars—

The blow doesn’t land.  Hunger-Garl looks suddenly at the sky, opalescent eyes wide in shock.

And then, light.

The columns break off from the Hunger, transforming into glittering trees of light that scatter and dissolve through the sky.  And the black opal figure before him begins to shimmer.  The dark opalescence flakes away as the being inside glows brighter and brighter.  And then there is a burst of shimmering golden light, and the darkness is gone, and another Garl stands before him.

He blinks, like he's just stepped out of a cave into bright sunlight.  He looks at Arumdina in his hands, shining and golden once more, and then he looks up at Garl of Faerun.  His form is already beginning to dissipate into flakes of white light.  

He smiles.  "Long odds," he says quietly.  "Biggest payoffs."

And then he is gone.


	10. The Sea

Davenport stands on a boat in the middle of the ocean, and he's screaming.

His voice carries over the still water.  The stars watch mutely as he rages back and forth over the deck of his ship, the sound of his voice punctured every so often by the smash of crockery.  He picks up a teacup from the crate of old thrift-shop dishware and hurls it out into the sea, as hard as he can.  The plop it makes as it strikes the water is too quiet for him, so the next cup he picks up is smashed against the deck instead.  The sharp explosion of breaking ceramic is abrupt and satisfying.

He senses Garl's presence before he sees him.  But he keeps doing what he's doing.  Right now, he just needs to make _noise._   He needs to get ten years of frustration and a century's worth of rage out of him.  His anger is a wild thing in his chest, a falcon with flaming wings and steel talons breaking its way desperately out of the cage of his ribs.

"Utirhant…"

He lets loose a wordless cry as he smashes an ugly serving platter against the metal deck railing.  He watches the broken fragments fall into the sea.

"…Did that help?" Arumdina asks.

"Does it matter?" he snaps back, before he can stop himself.  He doesn't want to stop himself.  He wants to say everything he can.  "Everything else in this world is fucking broken.  What's one more _fucking_ dish?"  He throws a shallow bowl to the deck.

"Utirhant," says Garl, and the sound of his name is both gentle and firm.  "You helped save this world."

"After I helped break it in the first place," he growls. 

"And it's because of you that it will even have a chance to heal in the first place!  The Hunger wouldn't have given it that chance."

His jaw clenches.  "I have a right to my anger," he says. 

Garl sighs.  "You do."

He reaches for another dish, but drops his hand and slumps against the deck railing instead, as the last of his anger drains out of him.  Like the burning bird in his chest finally broke free and flew away, leaving him exhausted and empty.  He stares out at the silent sea, blinking hard.  The moon is too bright to look at. 

"Garl, I'm so sorry."  The words are strained, tight.  "I should have listened to you.  I--I shouldn't have shut you out.  I should never have--damn it!"  He rubs his hand down his face.  "I fucked up." 

There's a moment of silence as he waits for Garl's condemnation.  But Garl only sighs again. 

"So did I," he says.  He has never sounded so old.  "You have a right to be angry at me, too.  I saw what Lucretia was planning, with the voidfish.  And I didn't stop her.  In fact, I encouraged it.  I thought…well, I thought it would help you.  Give you a fresh start.  I…did not foresee what it would do to you.  I am sorry."

Davenport leans against the railing, saying nothing for a long time.  He closes his eyes, listens to the soft splash of water against the hull.

Garl picks up a plate from the pile.  "So if you want to smash a few plates on my account, I underst--"

"I'm not angry at you," he says, voice raw.  He opens his eyes, but keeps his gaze fixed on the horizon.  "I know Lucretia.  She would've done what she did, regardless of your interference.  All you did was guide my fall."  His fingers tighten on the railing.  "Lucretia took everything away from me but you...gave me something to hold onto, something to shape myself around.  If it weren't for that..."  His voice trails off, briefly.  It's just so _much,_ he still hasn't processed it all.  "I'm honestly not sure what would've happened to me."

Garl draws close to him, sets a hand on his shoulder.  Davenport doesn't pull away.  "It was all I could do," he says.  "Your name was all you had left by the time I intervened."

A short, sharp laugh escapes him.  "I'm not talking about my name.  I'm talking about--"  He blinks, trying to swallow the stone in his throat.  "I remembered _you_.  I remembered that you loved me."

He looks at Garl finally, and looks away, as the weight of a century of regret rolls over him like the tide.  He buries his face in his hands and slides to his knees on the deck of his ship.  As if he could hide from his mistakes.  The deck is damp and cool, and he can feel sea spray soaking into his trousers.  He shivers.

It hadn't escaped him that the Oculus had often fallen into the hands of gnomes.  How many of them had been sent by Garl to try to undo his mistake?  How many of Garl's people died because of him?  Because he was stubborn and inflexible and proud, because he was a shitty emissary.  If anything, he's the one who deserves his god's wrath, not the reverse.  He doesn't even know how he can come back from this.  What could his future possibly look like?  Who is he, without the Mission to justify it all?  How does he make a life in this world that he hurt?  He is so, so lost.

He feels Garl's arm around him.  It's warm, and it makes his skin tingle, like his limbs had fallen asleep and they're only just waking up.

"My Utirhant," says Garl, brushing a stray lock of hair from his cheek.  "You were never lost.  Your name is carved like a facet into the jewel of my heart.  I always know exactly where you are."

Davenport feels his heart cracking open.  He presses his face in his knees and sobs.  Garl holds him, saying nothing, as the boat rocks gently on the waves.  He cries for a long time.

The moon has set by the time he stops.  To the east, the sky is turning a pale silvery-blue with the promise of dawn not far off.  He wipes a few final tears from his cheeks and sits up.  "Where do I go from here?" he asks.

A little smile makes the corner of Garl's mustache lift.  "You could start by talking to your family," he says.  "They love you too.  Don't be afraid to ask them for help."

Davenport inhales sharply.  He looks away.  "I can't talk to them."

"Of course you can!  You flew into the Hunger.  Talking to your loved ones is nothing scarier than anything you've already done."

He shakes his head.  "It's not that," he mumbles.  "I mean, I _can't talk_ to them.  I--sometimes when I'm talking, I…lose words.  Or I can't get them out right."  His grip tightens on Garl's sleeve.  He curses himself for sounding like a whiny child, but he can't stop speaking right now.  "I used to have trouble speaking when I was a child, and now it's back but it's _worse_.  But you're the only one I've never had trouble speaking to."

Garl laughs softly, but it isn't a mean or dismissive sound.  "My Utirhant," he says, "they still follow you despite the Puppyport Incident on Cycle 67."

Davenport feels the heat rise to his cheeks.  He buries his face again.  "Oh gods," he mutters.  "That got broadcast?"

Another chuckle.  "Your family has seen you a hundred different ways!  They've seen you at your most vulnerable, at your silliest, at your softest and most doting.  They've seen you as a puppy and as the Wordless, and they still chose to call you Captain and follow you into the storm."  He takes Davenport by the chin and gently turns his face towards him.  "They're not going to turn away from you now just because you stumble on a few words!  You're still _you._   And they love and respect _you._ "

Davenport sighs.  Garl is right, and he knows it.  But still…what would they think if he just wrote letters begging them to visit him because he's lonely?  Because he doesn't know how to build a life and a purpose for himself without them to guard and to guide?

"Maybe," he mutters.  "I could, ah, always call them back to me to go on an adventure or something.  Just to hang out.  For old times' sake."  No, that's ridiculous.  They wouldn't drop the important work they're doing--running schools and building libraries and resurrecting whole towns--just to spend time with him.  "Maybe…we could search for sunken treasure…"  That could work.  Taako, at least, wouldn't turn down an adventure if there was a nice bottom line. 

Garl raises an eyebrow. 

"Hmm, but the others might be less interested in monetary gain."  He sits up.  "But what if I told them I really need the money because, ah…I'm in debt to a bunch of pirates!"

"Wait, wait, wait," says Arumdina.  " _Wait_.  So you'd rather your family thinks you're some kind of financial disaster who falls into debt with shady folks the moment you're on your own, than actually admit to them that you're lonely?"

He hesitates.  "Well," he says, "when you put it like that, I suppose…" 

"Listen, kiddo, I'm a magical talking axe and I can tell you that's a bad idea.  Just get some paper and a quill, and write letters to your family saying you love them and want to see them again."

"Well, I mean—won't that sound _needy_?"

"For crying out--!  Garl, hold me up to Utirhant's face.  Get me really fuckin' close."

Garl chuckles, and obliges her, holding the flat of her golden blade up to Davenport's nose. 

_"Tell.  Them.  The.  Truuuuuuth,"_ she says, emphasizing each word.

Davenport clears his throat.  "All right," he says.  "Fine.  But…let's just leave Pirate Debt Treasure Hunting as Plan B."

"Utirhant, I say this with all the affection in the world, but you are one of the strangest emissaries I've ever met.  And that is saying a _lot_."

He smiles.  "I'll take that as a compliment."

 

#

 

Garl of Tosun lands with a thud on the floor of his banquet hall.  He hears groaning around him.  The rest of his pantheon is sprawled all around him, sitting up and rubbing their heads in bewilderment. 

"What in my own name just happened?" Gaerdal growls.

"I think," said Flandal, "we just spent a century batting for the other team.  Not an experience I care to repeat."

Garl stares at his hands.  His shimmering gold flesh shows no marks of his time as--something else.  The wound on his shoulder has already healed, a pale mark on his skin, no different from any other scar.  But he remembers.  A hundred years of rage and despair, cut off from everything that made him _him_ , feeling nothing but contempt for the lives he consumed.

"Well," he says, getting to his feet, "we'll just have to sort this out.  Now more than ever, our people will need to remember their joy, and find strength in their communities."

"You mean it's pranking o'clock," Gaerdal grumbles, still the same old stick-in-the-mud he's always been.

"It's always pranking o'clock!" he says, mustering up all the cheer he can.  "Right, Arumdina?...Arumdina...?"

She says nothing.

He draws her from her holster and stares at her.  She is a cold weight in his hands.

"Flandal!" he calls, dashing across the banquet to his friend.  He thrusts the axe into her maker's hands.  "Fix her _right now_."  His voice booms through the hall, an undeniable command.

Flandal frowns.  He runs his hands over the golden blades, sharp as ever, and along the oak handle.  He presses his ear up against her.  "Come on, my girl," he says gently, and taps the flat of her blade.  "Come on out."

There is silence in the hall.  And then, a quiet voice, barely above a whisper, drifts out of the axe.  "…Garl?  You there?"

Flandal hands the axe back to him.  "Yes, Arumdina," Garl says, gently.  "I am here."

"….Garl, come closer…"

He presses his ear against the flat of her blade.  "Yes, my friend?"

"…That…fucking _sucked_.  Let's never do that again."

He laughs.

She snickers.  "So, pranking o'clock, then?"

"Indeed!  But first…I need to make one stop."  He turns to Gaerdal.  "Check the perimeter of the Golden Hills, make sure we are well and truly clear of that menace or any others.  The rest of you, check in with your respective followers and report back to me.  I'll be back shortly."  And he swings Arumdina, cutting a hole through the celestial plane, and walks through.

Istus is where he expects her to be, sitting in her chair and knitting, her scarf stretching off into the unseeable distance.  She is inspecting the last few rows, feeling the knitted-up fabric, her delicate fingers searching for gaps or inconsistencies.  She looks up at his arrival and smiles wanly.

"Garl Glittergold," she says.  "I've been expecting you."

He puts his fists on his hips and cocks an eyebrow.  "Quite a trick you pulled," he says.  "I'm impressed.  And that's saying a lot, coming from me."

"Oh?"  She raises both eyebrows, trying to feign an innocent look.  But Garl is the Lord of Pranks, and he knows that look like the back of his hand.  He _invented_ that look.

"Ha!  What do you think?  The bond engine stitching their fates into a hundred different dimensions?  Weaving them back together from death with white threads?  The same glowing white threads that you so happened to knit into your scarf, oh…about eleven decades ago?"  He jabs a finger at the scarf.  "You channeled your power through the bond engine, didn't you?  You clever hooligan!"

She laughs.  "I have been called many things in my lifetime," she says, "but that is a new one."

He lets his expression soften.  "Thank you," he says.  "For doing what you did.  If it wasn't for your timely intervention, I suppose we'd still be in that…other place."

She looks down at her knitting, lets the loose yarn dangle through her fingers.  "I have you to thank for putting the right people in the right place at the right time."  She smiles.  "What is that term you use?  Putting your piece on the gameboard, long before anyone knows it'll be needed?"

Garl shrugs.  He'd tried his best to prepare Utirhant for a fateful life, but so much had hinged on things he couldn't foresee, could never have predicted.  So much had hinged on what Utirhant decided for himself.  "I only chose the one," he says, "and he chose his path, and brought the others along with him."  He sits down beside Istus, stroking his mustache, deep in thought.  For a moment, there is companionable silence between them. 

"Think he'll forgive me?" he muses.  "For putting such a burden on him?"  He wishes he could see his Utirhant now, but the fate knitted into Istus's endless scarf had placed his emissary far beyond his reach.  Another Garl will be looking after him now.

She hums thoughtfully.  "You were not the one who made his fate.  I suspect he understands that, by now."  She pauses, and adds, "Why _did_ you choose him?  Him, of all your people?  I admit, he struck me as an…unconventional choice on your part."

Garl considers this.  There were several reasons he chose Utirhant:  a sense that he was destined to do great things (oh, how true that proved to be!); a desire to be surprised, for once (and oh how his Utirhant had surprised him!).  But all the reasons he could name collapse into that single moment he appeared in young Davenport's room and saw the wary, skeptical look in the boy's eyes, felt his heart like a bright jewel locked away in a chest of iron.

"He seemed like he could use a friend," he says with a shrug.

Istus's small smile grows, just a tad.  She hears the secret ocean of meaning beneath his light words.  They've known each other long enough

He grins, waggles a finger.  "So!  Now that our respective emissaries have saved all of existence," and he winks, "will you finally let me join your poker nights?"

She laughs.  "I think that would be lovely."

 

#

 

Life on Tosun picks up as normal.  The nightmare of the Hunger is over--and that is all it is.  The gods might remember it all, but for mortals, that century inside the Hunger was just a bad dream they woke up from:  a generic nightmare of shadows and pursuit, which wrapped up abruptly with a song and a story and a happy ending.  A dream that faded quickly into obscurity as life picked up exactly as it had left off.

He supposes it's a mercy.  The minds of mortals are more fragile than the minds of gods.

But there are gaps; there are losses that leave their shadowy imprints behind.  Garl sees this as he watches over his people, as he is drawn by the grief of one particular family.

Clocthi has fallen asleep at his work desk again, head cradled in his arms.  His collection of rocks and semi-precious stones is arrayed on the desk around him like a silent congregation.  A half-finished mosaic sits nearby, pieces laid out in a pattern of swirling stars against a deep blue background.  A gift for someone who will never come home.

A letter from the IPRE arrived that morning, full of formal statements about bravery and sacrifice meant to cushion the bitter pill at the center.  The story of the Starblaster was short and unrewarding, a story of gaps and radio silence stretching out to the edge of the planar system.  The only ending that story has is merely one of paperwork, an administrative closure that does nothing to soothe hearts left forever wondering.

Garl leans down over Clocthi's sleeping form, and brushes a strand of dark hair from the gnome's eyes.  And he steps inside his dream.

He doesn't go far.  Clocthi's holy place is, unsurprisingly, his work table.  Art is his vocation, and it is in these long nights of putting stone to stone, building something beautiful, where he most brushes up against the transcendent.

He doesn't look up at Garl.  He's focused on an empty frame, hand poised uncertainly over a pile of colored stones.  But Garl knows Clocthi is aware of his presence.  The waiting hand is an invitation, the channel through which the message will come.

"Remember the dream," he says.  "You know the one."

Making a mosaic takes many hours of work, but time passes differently in this space.  Clocthi puts the colored stones in place inside the frame almost instantly, his mental images translated to a shifting landscape of blue-glass skies turning slowly to riverstone gray and then swallowed up in shimmering black obsidian.  Clocthi frowns.  "A dark storm," he mutters quietly.

"And the Light," says Garl.  "And the ship.  Remember, Clocthi."

A silver ship flies through the storm, staying always just ahead of it.  Seven chips of dark red glass are visible inside it.  A shining white stone follows their path.  "A brilliant light," Clocthi continues.  "Heralded by seven birds, flying tirelessly from the storm."

"The ship, Clocthi.  Look inside it."

The mosaic shifts, the ship growing bigger and bigger until it swallows the frame.  Seven figures in red stand in a room; the figure in the middle--the smallest, a gnome with bright orange hair--is gripping a white wheel.  Clocthi frowns.  "I saw…"  He blinks.  "Cloch?"  He rubs a hand over his eyes, covers his mouth as he stares at the mosaic.  "The Starblaster?"  And he looks up at Garl, seeing him for the first time.

Garl smiles.  "It's all true," he says.  "Tell them, Clocthi."

And then the dream is done, and Clocthi wakes.

 

#

 

Clocthi is at Star Ruby Jella's office the first thing the next morning.  She welcomes him graciously over a cup of lemon verbena tea.  He cuts straight to the point.

"Garl Glittergold sent me a vision last night."

Jella puts her quill down, both eyebrows arched in surprise.  "A vision of things to come?"

He shakes his head.  "A vision of things that have been."  He frowns.  "Things that were…forgotten."

She smiles over her teacup.  "That's remarkable!  Truly a sign of his favor." 

Clocthi raises both eyebrows.  "You believe me?"

She shrugs, leaning back in her chair.  "Frankly, I'd be more skeptical, but you're not the only one in your family to whom Garl has shown…favor."

Clocthi's foot taps restlessly on the floor.  "That's what I want to talk to you about," he says.  "I have two requests to make of the Temple.  One, I'd like to be added to the lineup for the next Communion.  I'd like to tell this…this story that Garl told me."

She waves a hand.  "Easily done," she says.  "All are welcome to have their turn on the dais."

Clocthi swallows.  "And…for my second request, I'd like to become a Jewel."

Now her gaze is more thoughtful.  She sets down her cup and gives him a long, appraising look.  "Is this what Garl has asked of you?" she asks, after a moment has passed in silence.

"No," he says.  "Garl didn't specifically ask this of me."

"Then why?  I am not denying the request, of course.  But I am curious to know why you'd like to make this choice.  Being a Jewel is a lifetime of devotion."

Clocthi takes a deep breath.  He doesn't answer her until his racing thoughts have a chance to settle.  "Because," he says, "I want to serve the god who saved my brother."

 

#

 

"Bone appetite!" Lup sings, dropping the platter of roast pork on the middle of the table.

Kravitz raises an eyebrow.  "You mean _bon appetit,_ right?"

Lup's mouth quirks in a smile.  "I meant what I said, Ghost Rider," she says.  "This lich is _hungry._ "

Kravitz sighs dramatically.  "One thing I will say about your family, dear," he says to Taako, "the conversation is never dull."

Lup carves a healthy slab of meat and drops it on Davenport's plate.  "That's how we roll!"

Davenport grins.  It's a lovely day at the beach, and the twins have set up a picnic table on the golden sands.  "Honestly," he says, cutting into the pork, "I've really missed your cooking, out on the waves."

She arches an eyebrow.  "All the more reason to join us for family dinners," she remarks. 

"I know, I know!  I promise I'll visit more often."  He means it, too.  Lup gave him a long talking-to after the Ghost Fleet incident and his awkward attempt to lure them back to his side with promises of sunken treasure.  He couldn't even justify it as a good prank.  It's just…hard to know what to say.  Even with all the words in the world. 

But he can try.  Garl is right, his family loves him.  Even if they don't always pick up what he's setting down.  All the more reason for him to try to be more direct with them.

Taako nods, offering to top off Davenport's wine glass.  "Good, good," he says.  "Wouldn't want ya gettin' lost out there."

"I'm never lost," he says automatically.  He's about to follow it up with, _Garl always knows where I am,_ but the words get stuck in his throat.  He can't tell them about Garl, it's been too long.  It's always been too long.  Instead he corrects to, "I always know where I am."  But it comes across as a hollow boast, a deflection of the problem he'd just promised to be more open about.

Taako picks up on it, and gives Davenport a long, thoughtful look.  Davenport clears his throat, and takes a long pull of the wine.  "Th-this is, uh, g-good stuff, Taako," he says, his tongue tripping up as his nerves get the better of him.  Damn it.

By now, even the others at the table have picked up on the subtle shift of mood.  Lucretia frowns at her plate, a guilty look on her face.  Kravitz glances at Taako.  Magnus looks up from where he's trying to fit a giant pork sandwich into his face. 

Merle clears his throat.  "Listen, Dav," he says, "so I been thinkin'.  If ya need somethin' ta do…"

Davenport raises an eyebrow, and forces a wry smile.  "I hope it's better than your bait shop idea."

"No, hear me out!"  Merle holds up a hand.  "So, you're feelin' lost because you need a purpose, right?  Somethin' that makes a difference.  Like how Barry and Lup got their jobs as reapers."

He sighs.  At least Merle has finally recognized the problem--a problem which, he reminds himself, he's never explicitly vocalized.  "Yeah, I…yeah.  Like that."

"So, you get an important job like they did."

He nods.  "That makes sen—"

"As a reaper."  Merle grins, spreading his hands wide.

Davenport's hand freezes halfway to his glass of wine.  "…Excuse me?"  He's just so surprised by the suggestion that all he can do is stare at Merle. 

"Just talk to Kravitz, have him hook ya up!" Merle rolls on, grinning.  "It'll be great!  And you'll get to hang out with family all the time!"

Kravitz looks up, mouth half full of roasted potato.  Both his eyebrows are lifted so high they look like they might come off his face.  He glances at Davenport, who sighs.

"Okay," he says, pinching the bridge of his nose.  "It's…at least better than the bait shop idea.  I'll give you that.  But Merle, I don't think that's…"  He rubs a hand over his chin.  "I mean, I don't have an interest in fighting necromancers or handling…soul management."  He looks at Kravitz, hoping to silently convey, _Save me from this terrible idea._

Kravitz chuckles.  "It's quite all right," he says, raising a hand.  "Being a reaper isn't exactly a job for everyone."

"Thank you, Kravitz.  You see?"

Lup snorts.  "Though it would be cool to see you in a reaper form," she says.  "Flaming gnome skeleton duel-wielding a pair of mini-scythes?  Badass."

"Lightning," says Barry, staring at Davenport with that distant, thoughtful look of his.  "I'd see him as more a lightning kinda guy.  Still badass, though."

"True," Kravitz admits, in a musing tone.  "But the paperwork would be atrocious.  We'd have to come to some sort of timeshare contract.  The Raven Queen is a stickler for having everything spelled out in writing, especially when it comes to inter-deific matters."

"What are you talking about?" asks Lup, leaning over Barry as she refreshes his glass of fruit punch.  "You never did a timeshare contract for us to become Reapers."

Kravitz clears his throat.  "Well, as Davenport is already spoken for…"  He lets the words hang in the air, as if their meaning is self-explanatory.

Lup and Barry stare at him.  The others at the table stare at Davenport.  Davenport freezes, pinned by their collective gazes.

"Wait," says Merle, "you're _seeing_ someone?"

"Are they cute?" asks Magnus.

Kravitz seems to have finally caught on that he's made a wrong step.  A blush creeps across his dark cheeks, and he laughs nervously.  "I'm sorry," he says, "I thought you knew…"  He breaks off, clearing his throat.  "Oh dear."

"Knew what?" asks Magnus, looking between Kravitz and Davenport.

"Davenport, I apologize," says Kravitz.  "Forget I said anything--"

He waves away Kravitz's apology.  "No, it's--it's all right," he says, slipping into Captain Mode even as his heart pounds against his ribs.  Perhaps it's the opening he's needed.  Just a few words and it's all done.  Like jumping into the ocean.  A shock, a breathless rush, and then it's over.  "It's something I've needed to say for a long time.  Everyone, I…"

His whole family turns to look at him.  His crew, plus Kravitz, bounded by the lush forests behind Merle's beach house on one side, and the soft roar of the ocean on the other.  In the distance, he can hear Mavis and Mookie laughing.

"I--I'm.  Well.  You see."  Beneath the table, his fingers clutch the hem of the tablecloth.  The words are there, _right there,_ he hasn't lost them.  But the secret sits like a stone in his throat, heavy and cold.  When did it become a secret?  Why did he decide it had to be a _secret?_  

He closes his eyes.  "I'm-- _please._ "  This last word is to Garl, an unexpected prayer, but he can't think of any other way to get this thing out of his throat.

He can feel Garl's wry gaze, can picture the raised eyebrow.  _Oof,_ he mutters, _it's really lodged in there, isn't it?  Brace yourself._

He feels a tingle in the back of his throat, the same sort of feeling he gets when he's rolled the golden die and something is about to happen.  He begins to cough.  And he keeps coughing.  He staggers to his feet, eyes watering. 

He's tangentially aware of his family rising to their feet, calling his name in concern.  But it's Kravitz's hands he feels on his shoulders, gently guiding him away from the table and a little ways down the beach.  "It's okay, Taako," he hears Kravitz calling.  "He's not dying."

That's not terribly reassuring.  Right now he's coughing so hard it feels like his body is rejecting his lungs.  He feels something hard and cold loosen in his throat.

"Easy there," says Kravitz, thumping him lightly between the shoulder blades.  "Looks like a bit of a doozy.  Just take it slowly."

He feels one more forceful blow on his back, not from Kravitz, and his throat clears.  He opens his mouth and spits a giant pearl into his hand.

"There, better out than in!" Kravitz says cheerfully.  He leans over to get a look at the pearl.  "Looks like it was in there for a long time, eh?"

He stares at the pearl.  It's nearly as big as his palm.  "Thirteen decades," he says.  "I've been an emissary of Garl Glittergold for…over thirteen decades."  The words come out easily, as if he were merely musing about his love of fine, clear nights.

Kravitz smiles. 

He raises an eyebrow at the reaper.  "You're taking this awfully well.  I just coughed up a giant pearl!"

Kravitz shrugs.  "I coughed up feathers the first week I was an emissary."

"Gross."  He smiles.  "My second day, I sneezed out a pair of doves."  He snorts.  And then, like a spring of water welling up from his gut, he begins to laugh.  It's a wild, hearty laugh, and Kravitz catches him by the arm before he can fall over into the sand.  Together they walk back to the table, grinning.

"You okay, Cap?" asks Barry.  "You, uh--need a drink of water?"

Davenport grins.  "Yeah, Barry, I think I could use a drink.  In fact…it's a very auspicious day for me, so I think I'd like to raise a toast."  He takes the glass of cool water that Lup has at the ready for him, and lifts it.  His family raise their glasses and cups and steins, all eyes on him, and he is no longer afraid of their scrutiny.  "To friends and found family, who help us be our best selves."  They clink their glasses together and he takes a brief sip.  "I'm a divine emissary to the Lord of Pranks," he says, while they're still drinking.

His wand is already out, capturing his family's collective spit-take in an illusory copy.  "Oh, that is a _delight_ ," he says as they sputter and scramble to mop up the mess of spilled drinks.  "That's going right on my wall."

"You're _what?_ " Merle asks.  "Since when?"

"I work for Garl Glittergold, the gnomish god of pranks," he says.  "Since I was thirteen years old."  His expression softens.  "I probably should've mentioned it sooner, and I'm sorry about that.  It just felt like a really personal matter, so I didn't say anything, and then the not-saying became a whole _thing_ and I wasn't even sure how I felt about it and…well, here we are--"

Magnus sweeps him up in a hug.  "We can be emissary buds!" he says. 

Taako sighs dramatically.  "Explains why you were a fuckin' _beast_ when it came to prank wars," he says, then flicks his fingers.  "Well, I already put up with raven feathers molting everywhere, and plants growing in every nook and cranny, and Magnus's ever-increasing yarn stash, so I guess I can deal with more pranks."

"Knitting is therapeutic!" Magnus insists.  "It's good for the wrists!"

"Oh, _hella_ , my dude.  And you know I'm never gonna turn down one of those chunky sweaters you keep giving me every Candlenights.  Gotta keep up the aesthetic."

"Wait."  Lucretia's squinting at him.  "All those weird unexplained pranks on the moon base?  The ones we never found a culprit for?"

Davenport smiles, shaking his head.  "That was him.  In fact, he was honestly behind a lot of weird stuff that happened to or around me.  It's…it's honestly a long story and I'd love to tell you all of it.  Wow, it's a relief to finally get this off my chest!"  Magnus sets him down and he settles back into his chair.  A sigh escapes him.  "Honestly, I…I wish he were here to see me now.  The Garl of Tosun, I mean.  The one who picked me in the first place." 

He's surprised by the words even as he says them.  But they're _true_ , and right now he doesn't want to hold anything back. 

The table has fallen silent at this confession.  But it's a soft sort of silence, quietly supportive, and he lets himself sink into it.

"Wee-eelll," says Lup, sliding up to his side.  "If you could go home for, say, eighty minutes exactly, what would you do?"

He regards Lup.  She has that mischievous tone in her voice that he knows so well.  "That, uh, seems weirdly specific, to be honest."

She shoots a grin at Barry, who smiles and nods.  "Well, you see, Cap," she says, "we have these _belts…_ "

 

#

 

"We've all had this dream, right?" Clocthi begins.  He stands confidently at the front of the dais, holding the mic so his voice projects well into the back of the room.  "You know, the one where you're running from some generic dark force, a monster or a shadow, and you just can't get ahead of it?"

Garl sits in the pew, in disguise of course, listening to Clocthi talk about dreams. 

"We've all had that dream," Clocthi continues.  "You're running from a dark force, but you can't run fast enough and it catches up and you're so tired of running, so you just give up and let it swallow you.  And then _you're_ the dark force.  And you're really angry at someone for some reason—a friend or loved one, or maybe a stranger."  He pauses, lets the no-longer-generic description sink in.  "We've all had that dream."

The congregation shifts uncomfortably under Clocthi's meaningful gaze.  A few gnomes in the pew behind Garl begin whispering.

"And in this dream," he continues, "this dream we all kind of-sort of remember, we're angry at these people, this group of seven people, because we want it to end, and they won't let it end.  They are fighting to keep going.  Hope is their banner, and love is their fuel.

"And these heroes, we see them win.  After more than a century of pain, suffering, and struggle, they _win_ , and they end our long dark night of the soul.  In one moment of pure, all encompassing light, we are saved.  _We've all had this dream."_

The mutterings have stopped now, and there is dead silence in the temple.  Every pair of eyes is on Clocthi.  Garl smiles.  He didn't expect this one to want to join the temple, but he suspects Clocthi will make a fine Jewel.

"And I'm here to tell you," Clocthi goes on, moving across the dais, energized by his tale, "that this dream wasn't just a dream.  _It actually happened_.  As terrifying and mystifying a thought as that is, it is true.  But far from being scared, I want all of you—all of us—to be proud.  That seven brave adventurers from our world saved all of life, all of existence.  Through their sacrifice, we are made _light."_

Clocthi pauses.  Garl can sense the flood of complicated emotion blocking his throat.  He wriggles a finger, and Clocthi's throat comes unstuck, and his heart swells with courage.

"And we, this community, should be particularly proud.  Because these adventurers were led by one of our own."

Garl glances down the pew, to the rest of Utirhant's family.  His parents sit stunned, staring at their younger son, their hands clasped tightly together as grief slips away and understanding takes its place.

"And if you look at that silver ship you vaguely remember from this dream, and at the gnome at the helm whose face you can't quite make out, and you're still not certain if I'm just making this whole thing up?  I am here to tell you now, as Garl Glittergold is my witness, that is my _brother_ standing at the helm—"

His speech is cut off as the air behind him pops and two figures drop on a heap onto the dais's green-and-gold carpet.  Instantly the silence in the temple is broken as the congregation begins talking all at once, and Clocthi turns on his heel and the Jewels in the front pew stand up to try to figure out what just happened.

And before the tangle of limbs and the startled swearing resolves, before the two figures—a male gnome and a female elf—even get to their feet, Garl already knows who it is.  Because there is a door in his heart that he always keeps open, and for the first time in over a century, a familiar soul is peering through that door.  Older now, a little uncertain and a lot banged up, but as familiar to him as the back of his own hand.

Garl smiles.  "My Utirhant," he says.

And Captain Dwimly Drew True-Blue Utirhant Wrenchfell Cloch Cap'nport Davenport stands up, dusts himself off, and looks out at the shocked congregation.  And he sees his family—his relatives, his friends, his whole extended warren community, and Garl—and he smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, thank you for coming along on this "just a quick one-shot" story that turned into so much more! Your comments and feedback have meant so much to me! I am blown away by how much people got into this weird concept with me, and decided to join me on this journey :) Garl Glittergold and Arumdina are actual NPC characters in the Forgotten Realms RPG, so for those of you running your own D&D campaigns (or heck, just writing your own TAZ fics), they are out there for you to play with!
> 
> Special thanks to @transdavenport and @bruised_fruit for beta-reading and/or helping me bounce ideas around, and to everyone at the TFW Discord server for being incredibly supportive and letting me run with this idea!
> 
> And as a thank-you gift to all my readers, I drew a little comic of the story's final scene. You can find it on the Dropbox link here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4cq4c9uy3inhjbp/homecoming.jpg?dl=0
> 
> Till the next story! Choose joy, and choose bravery.


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